Happiness isn’t about having everything you’ve ever dreamed of, nor is it simply negating
the need for material pleasures in life. It goes deeper than that. What we’re all really looking
for is happiness from within that doesn’t depend on external circumstances – the kind I call
Happy for No Reason.
– Marci Shimoff
Happy people are 35 percent less likely to get a cold and produce 50 percent more antibodies
in response to flu vaccines than the average person.
– Marci Shimoff
When you’re Happy for No Reason, you bring happiness to your outer experiences rather than
trying to extract happiness from them. You don’t need to manipulate the world around you to
try to make yourself happy. You live from happiness, rather than for happiness.
– Marci Shimoff
When you forgive, you heal your own anger and hurt and are able to let love lead again. It’s
like spring cleaning for your heart.
– Marci Shimoff
Research shows how vital happiness is: happy people live longer, are healthier, and have
better relationships. In fact, happiness leads to more success in every area of your life.
– Marci Shimoff
A recent survey showed that at all income levels people think more money would definitely
increase their level of happiness. I heard a reporter once asked Andrew Carnegie, the famous
industrialist who’d amassed a fortune in steel, “You’re the richest man in the world. How much
is enough?” He thought for a moment and replied, “Just a little more.”
– Marci Shimoff
For one week, put $2 in a basket each time you blame, shame or complain. Keep track of how
much money you collect each day, and see if you make progress during the week. Use the
money for a family outing or make a donation to the charity of your choice.
– Marci Shimoff
Happiness is not what makes us grateful; it is gratefulness that makes us happy.
– Marci Shimoff
The guiding three principles to live by:
1. What expands you makes you happier. (The Law of Expansion)
2. The universe is out to support you. (The Law of Universal Support)
3. What you appreciate, appreciates. (The Law of Attraction)
– Marci Shimoff
All suffering comes from believing our thoughts.
– Marci Shimoff
Once you begin to understand and truly master your thoughts and feelings, that’s when you
see how you create your own reality. That’s where your freedom is, that’s where all your
power is. That’s when you see how you can become a deliberate creator of your life. And
when you are a deliberate creator of your life, and you use this law of attraction, you will
have a life that is beyond what you can possibly imagine right now.
– Marci Shimoff
You don’t try to get love from life, you bring love to life.
– Marci Shimoff
I once heard a revered sage speak. He took a question from a man dressed in a $3,000 suit,
wearing classy shoes and dripping with gold jewelry. The man asked, “What do I need to give
up to experience true happiness and inner peace?” The sage replied, ” There’s good news and
there’s bad news. The good news is that you don’t have to give up any of your stuff. Poverty
isn’t the way to happiness. The bad news is that you have to do something that may be
even harder for you. You have to give up the way you think.”
– Marci Shimoff
Forgiveness isn’t about the person or people being forgiven – it’s a gift you give yourself that
allows your heart to stop being contracted. When you forgive, you release the toxic
resentment and anger you’re holding in your heart, finally freeing yourself to get on with your
life.
– Marci Shimoff
To keep the thousands of negative thoughts we have each day from dragging us down, we
don’t have to try to get rid of each one of them. There’s a simpler way. The secret is in
accepting an astonishing fact: Your thoughts aren’t always true.
– Marci Shimoff
If you’re feeling good, then you’re creating a future that’s on track with what you’re desiring.
If you’re feeling bad, you’re creating a future that’s off track with your desires. As you go
about your day, the law of attraction is working in every second. Everything we think,
everything we’re feeling, is creating our future. If you’re worried, if you’re in fear, then that’s
bringing more of that into your life throughout the day.
– Marci Shimoff
The happiest people contribute to something greater than themselves in life.
– Marci Shimoff
Our “desire to acquire” won’t bring us true joy. So why is it so hard to escape wanting more?
Because Madison Avenue doesn’t want us to. Advertising exists to perpetuate the Myth of
More; it’s the engine that drives our economy.
– Marci Shimoff
Half of the reason you walk around generally cheery or perennially dreary is that you were
born that way, the other half is determined by your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs formed in
response to your life experiences.
– Marci Shimoff
Do you know how hard it is to get health experts to agree on anything? Yet everyone I
interviewed agreed that the biggest happiness destroyer in our diets is white sugar. It’s
powerfully addictive and wreaks havoc with your brain, causing depression, anxiety, and that
sluggish, low-energy state you recognize when your forehead hits the desk at 3 p.m. The
synthetic sugar substitutes are unfortunately no better; numerous reports point to potentially
negative side effects.
– Marci Shimoff
Love is the opposite of the body’s stress response. When we’re in fight or flight, we produce
stress chemicals which, over time, weaken the body. When we produce love chemicals – like
oxytocin, endorphins, and serotonin – these strengthen the whole system.
– Marci Shimoff
One evening a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people.
He said, “My son, the battle is between the two ‘wolves’ that live inside us all. One is
unhappiness. It is fear, worry, anger, jealousy, sorrow, self-pity, resentment, and inferiority.
The other is happiness. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, kindness, generosity, truth, and
compassion.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,
“Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
– Marci Shimoff
Our minds – made up of our thoughts, beliefs, and self-talk – are always “on.” According to
scientists, we have about 60,000 thoughts a day. That’s one thught per second during every
waking hour. No wonder we’re so tired at the end of the day!
– Marci Shimoff
Have you heard that old saying: Worrying is like a rocking chair; it takes a lot of energy and
doesn’t get you anywhere. The same goes for complaining.
– Marci Shimoff
Two Tibetan monks meet each other a few years after being released from prison, where
they had been tortured by their jailers.
“Have you forgiven them?” asks the first.
“I will never forgive them! Never!” replies the second.
“Well,” says the first monk, “I guess they still have you in prison, don’t they?”
– Marci Shimoff
In relationships we’re so used to complaining about other people. My co-workers are so
difficult to work with, my husband makes me so mad, my children are so lazy. It’s always
focusing on the other person. But for relationships to really work, we need to focus on what
we appreciate about the other person, not what we’re complaining about.
– Marci Shimoff
Like attracts like: whatever you think, feel, say, and act on, you draw to yourself like a
magnet. Whenever you appreciate the happiness that already exists in your life, like money in
the bank, it appreciates!
– Marci Shimoff
Play the Gratitude Game. Before you go to sleep, think of five things you’re grateful for that
day. Write them down in a journal if you’d like.
– Marci Shimoff
An old farmer used a horse to till his fields. One day, the horse ran away, and when the
farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer shrugged his
shoulders and replied, “Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?”
A week later, the horse returned with a herd of wild mares, and this time the neighbors
congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”
Then, when the farmer’s son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell and
broke his leg. Everyone agreed this was very bad luck. But the farmer’s only reaction was,
“Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?”
A week later, the army marched into the village and drafted all the young men they could
find. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg, they let him stay behind. Good
luck? Bad luck?
– Marci Shimoff
The highest use of the Law of Attraction is applying it to the goal that underlies all goals:
becoming Happy for No Reason.
– Marci Shimoff
Gratitude is not only fundamental to being Happy for No Reason, it’s good for your health too.
A recent study conducted by Dr. Michael McCullough at the University of Miami showed that
people who describe themselves as feeling grateful tend to have more vitality and optimism,
suffer less stress, and experience fewer episodes of clinical depression than the population as
a whole.
– Marci Shimoff
Begin each day by asking yourself, “What would be meaningful to do today?” Then be led by
inspiration throughout the day.
– Marci Shimoff
There are no drugs more powerful than those you already have in your head! More than
100,000 chemical reactions go on in your brain every second. Your brain contains a veritable
pharmacopoeia of natural happiness-enhancing drugs: endorphins (the brain’s painkiller, three
times stronger than morphine), serotonin (which naturally calms anxiety and relieves
depression), oxytocin (the bonding hormone), and dopamine (which promotes alertness and a
feeling of enjoyment), among others. They’re just waiting to be released to every organ and
cell in your body. Because your brain’s pharmacy is open 24 hours a day, you can create your
own supply of these happiness chemicals any time you want. And when your cells are happy,
you are happy.
– Marci Shimoff
I read a December 2004 study in the journal Science reporting that the quality of our sleep
has a greater influence on our ability to enjoy our day than household income or marital
status.
– Marci Shimoff
One day an old woman walked up to a dusty building site where three strong, young men
were working hard laying bricks. She walked up to the first man and asked him what he was
doing. He replied rather rudely, “Can’t you see? I’m laying bricks. This is what I do all day – I
just lay bricks.” She then asked the second man what he was doing. He replied, “I’m a
bricklayer and I’m doing my work. I take pride in my craft, and I’m happy that what I do here
feeds my family.” As she walked up to the third man, she could see that his eyes were full of
joy and his face was as bright as the day. When she posed the same question to him, he
replied with great enthusiasm, “Oh, I’m building the most beautiful cathedral in the whole
world.”
– Marci Shimoff