Happiness is a Choice

By Barry Neil Kaufman, Random House, 1991

Unhappiness is not inevitable. Unhappiness is not an enemy

- just a choice. BOOK OF THE WEEK:
Barry Neil Kaufman, therapist,
author, motivational speaker, This book is not based on a
and founder of the Option moral imperative - no shoulds
Institute, has observed that or should-nots - just choices.
despite disappointments,
illnesses, and physical and
emotional problems, people
who are most successful in
finding happiness share
certain traits - traits that less
fortunate people can learn to
emulate so that they
themselves can find
happiness as well. read the summary

INSIDE THIS SUMMARY:

The Big Idea Shortcuts to Happiness, Implementing the
Why You Need This Book Happiness Option
Creating a Personal Vision to Live By - Make Happiness the Priority!
- The Way We Look At Life Determines Our - Personal Authenticity
Experience - Letting Go of Judgments
- We Are Belief-Making and Belief-Consuming - Being Present
Creatures - Being Grateful
- Our Beliefs Create Our World Picture, Which We - Deciding to Be Happy
Then Transmit to Others A Simple Blueprint for Personal and Planetary Peace
The Happiness Option
Thriving in a User-Friendly Universe

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 THE WAY WE LOOK AT LIFE DETERMINES
The Big Idea OUR EXPERIENCE
Unhappiness is not inevitable.
Such a simple insight presents each and every
person with an opportunity to make momentous
Barry Neil Kaufman, therapist, author, motivational
changes in life. The only limits are the ones you
speaker, and founder of the Option Institute, has create. Why not inspire yourself rather than scare
observed that despite disappointments, illnesses, yourself? Your conclusions follow from your
and physical and emotional problems, people who chosen biases (your chosen beliefs).
are most successful in finding happiness share
certain traits - traits that less fortunate people can
learn to emulate so that they themselves can find WE ARE BELIEF-MAKING AND BELIEF-
happiness as well. CONSUMING CREATURES
The impact of the beliefs you hold is profound. You
Unhappiness is not an enemy - just a choice. create and hold beliefs to support what you think
are best. Once they are articulated and itemized,
This book is not based on a moral imperative - no your beliefs often sound somewhat bizarre and
shoulds or should-nots - just choices. self-defeating. This is why reviewing them
provides you with a wondrous opportunity.

Change beliefs and you change the attitudes,

thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that come from
Why You Need This Book them. Even after exploring your beliefs, if you
This positive and encouraging book is an excellent choose to retain some of the ones you have, you
prescription for a happier life. It teaches ways to would do so with strengthened conviction. Either
defuse unhappiness and thrive despite all of life's position becomes a victory! The decision is yours,
challenges. It is sure to reward those who read it and as it has always been.
take it to heart with a richer, more balanced life. It
affirms the unlimited potential of the human spirit
and reveals the options and choices that one can OUR BELIEFS CREATE OUR WORLD
make to find the road to happiness. PICTURE, WHICH WE THEN TRANSMIT TO
OTHERS
As individuals, everyone becomes a force within a
shared field of ideas and visions. First, you can
Creating a Personal Vision to Live By acknowledge yourself as a receiver. In addition to
The eye sees what it brings to seeing. - that, you transmit your ideas and visions. Your life
SHELLEY becomes a beacon that communicates the
attitudes you assume, the beliefs you create and
A vision - a frame of reference or viewpoint - is like the actions you take. You become more than a role
an invisible friend you invent to help you make model; you seed the field of human experience
sense of unfolding circumstances. with your perspectives and deeds.

You create visions for the best of reasons: to protect

yourself, to honor those you love and to express
caring. The Happiness Option
Most folks are about as happy as they make
But you do not have to become prisoners of your up their minds to be. - ABRAHAM LINCOLN
perspectives; you can change them and your life by
developing a completely new world picture one You weren't born unhappy; you learned to be
human step at a time. unhappy. And, in addition, you have become a

Indestructible
Happiness is aSelf-Belief
Choice, byby
Barry
Fiona
Neil
Harrold
Kaufman 2 of 6
master at teaching and reinforcing unhappiness. In In choosing a user-friendly vision of the universe,
small, seemingly insignificant ways, you save the you will notice more supportive action and
day but lose another life to misery. When you reward opportunities around you. In choosing happiness,
anger, you teach violence and war. When you support you will encounter a happy God. In choosing love,
happiness, you teach love, peace, and acceptance. you will encounter a loving God.
You have the choice.
Your creation of a new world picture, which would
IS HAPPINESS AN IMPOSSIBLE DREAM? be supportive of you and therefore your pursuit of
Desire combined with passion and the ingenuity happiness, begins with attentiveness to your own
of the mind can give birth to sustained happiness, human magnificence and to the innate tendency
something that transforms human experience. you and other creatures have to move together in
like or compatible rhythms.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HAPPY? Some
call happiness a feeling of satisfaction, comfort, You plant the seeds of a user-friendly universe
fulfilment and inner peace. The sensation of with your perception: The eye sees what it brings
happiness might be unique to each and every to seeing.
one; however, you know when you are there.
Happiness brings people closer together than
pushing them apart. Happiness makes love
tangible. Shortcuts to Happiness,
Happiness and the belief that you can experience
Implementing the Happiness
your own happiness, anytime and anyplace, is the Option
ultimate attitudinal advantage! Dear Sweet Readers: If you have jumped to
this chapter in the book, wonderful! However,
after reading whatever sections you want, I
would like to encourage you to backtrack to
Thriving in a User-Friendly Universe the beginning of the book and read the other
As we gaze into the universe deep inside of us, chapters which I believe will create a strong
and into the universe which surrounds us, we foundation from which you can then easily
search for an answer to the question - is it implement the life-changing suggestions
friendly? - BARRY NEIL KAUFMAN presented here. LOVE, BEARS (BARRY
NEIL KAUFMAN)

These tools for taking charge, which fit so

ABOUT THE BOOK: naturally and easily in your hands, allow you to
replace discipline with celebration and substitute
years of questionable study and therapeutic soul-
searching with simple reminders. You are fully
equipped; you have only to exercise your winning
Author: Barry Neil Kaufman
option - your shortcuts to happiness.
Publisher: Random House
Date of Publication: 1991
ISBN: 0-449-90799-6 You can take the shortcuts now and claim your
284 pages birthright to happiness. Your choices will become
your destiny. Your many choices to be happy
(accessible in an instant by virtue of a decision)
will create life-affirming and life-sustaining
happiness arcs.

Happiness is a Choice, by Barry Neil Kaufman 3 of 6

 Increased openness and honesty enhance
a sense of personal ease and inner
harmony. With that growing river of comfort
(happiness) comes increased respect and
love for those around us.
Happiness first! Happiness now! Just bringing
happiness (and love) to center stage will make a
profound difference. Although the validity of this This doorway to happiness opens easily.
statement might appear obvious, rarely do people put You can begin by sharing with a lover, a
happiness first in their lives. friend, a co-worker, a son or daughter or
parent some fact about yourself you might
have kept secret or at least, shared rarely
No reason to make happiness the dessert on with others.
the menu; it can be the whole meal. Even in the
face of an attack or the loss of a treasure, you can
affirm your first priority in every situation - to be
happy.

You can trust that your happiness will realign

not only the dendrites in your brain but also the Of all the shortcuts to happiness, letting go
molecules of your material world and become a
of judgments can be the most dazzling. By
lullaby that will charm the universe.
discarding judgments and embracing
people and situations more openly, you not
only provide yourself with opportunities for
great happiness, but also sometimes pierce
walls formerly viewed as impenetrable.

Judgments about people and possibilities

limit your thinking and what you might try to
The risk you associate with authenticity is accomplish.
illusory. The more you nurture yourself, remove
the masks and allow yourself uncensored
expression, the more the rhythms within blend People have become geniuses in
with those surrounding you. pinpointing all that's difficult and bad in their
lives and the world around them. People set
themselves up for unhappiness rather than
Personal authenticity leads you to abandon the for peace or comfort. Misery as a human
masks and masquerades you do not truly own so
experience comes from judging yourself,
that you can embrace and celebrate your most
other people and events as bad or terrible.
central character.

In effect, simplify your life. One face greets A c c e p t a n c e a n d u t i l i z a t i o n , n o t

condemnation, of the miracle of
every situation without embarrassment or regret.
consciousness and your ability to reason will
Rather than rehearse the right response, you
lead you to happiness.
can trust yourself by allowing the response you
feel in any given moment.
You are the belief maker! You can find the
best or create the best in each and every
Unhappy commentaries are not signs of situation. The good and the bad and what
authenticity; they are signs of unhappiness.
follows (the happiness or the misery) are

Happiness is a Choice, by Barry Neil Kaufman 4 of 6

 products of your judgments - pure and simple!

You can dump the old judgments like dusty

plates from old cupboard shelves and refuse to
make new ones. You can begin anew today, A personality characteristic that people
right now. Just decide. clearly display when they become happier is
their unending sense of gratitude.
Let go of the judgments and you will fly on the
wings of acceptance, love and happiness! Being happy brings not only a recognition
and harnessing of the power of your inner
guidance, but also an acknowledgement of
the synergistic power of a user-friendly
universe that makes such happiness and self-
trust possible.

Gratitude is the sweetest way to embrace

Unhappiness exists only as a reflection or happiness. You can cut through all the misery
regret about the past or as anticipation or worry by turning your attention to being grateful.
toward the future.
Gratitude then becomes the shortest of
It does not exist right now, in this moment... if shortcuts to happiness.
we stay in this moment.
To be grateful means not only to delight,
You create limitations with obsolete concepts enjoy and appreciate, but also to recognize
that do not serve you. simultaneously the blessing and the wonder of
an experience. In such moments there is only
Unhappiness is akin to confusion. By holding happiness.
on to old discomforts, you bury the present and
its wonder in the fog of the past. You can train yourself to be sensitive to the
many miracles of living. In the face of such
You are not in pursuit of history; you are in awareness, gratitude (and happiness) will
pursuit of happiness. bubble easily to the surface.

You have only to remind yourself to attend to Whenever you think you have lost your way
each unfolding moment in your chosen or have noticed joy to be absent from your
endeavors. daily endeavors, you can look around and find
a host of things, events or people to
appreciate. If you make the items specific, you
Being present not only increases your skill and will never exhaust the resources with which to
effectiveness in personal and global
fuel your gratitude.
relationships; it expands profoundly the depth
and scope of each experience.
You can smile at a stranger, hug someone
you know or tidy a disorganized shelf and be
Letting go of the past and future is diving into thankful for the opportunity.
the current in a river or a stream. Such a
decision is neither irresponsible nor risky. Being
present opens the doorway to happiness. If you choose gratitude, you will be happy!

Happiness
The Treasure
is aPrinciple
Choice, by Barry
RandyNeil
Alcorn
Kaufman 5 of
of 668
 If you decide to satisfy your inner longing for
happiness, you can use these simple tools, these
shortcuts, to grease the wheels that will speed you
on your way!

This shortcut encompasses all the other

shortcuts and could render them obsolete as
you learn to empower your decisions.

By deciding to be happier (to dispense with

your unhappiness), you acknowledge your
capacity to choose your beliefs and feelings as
well as to take a directorial role in guiding your
responses to events and people with a clear and
conscious intention.

In deciding to be happy, you cut through to the

heart of who you are. You want it! And you will do
it now!

A Simple Blueprint for Personal and ~///~

Planetary Peace
What happens if for some reason you want to jump
off the train of happiness after climbing aboard? No
problem. You can always choose (decide) to be
uncomfortable again - for happiness is a choice and
misery is always an option.

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Happiness
The Treasure
is aPrinciple
Choice, by Barry
RandyNeil
Alcorn
Kaufman 65 of
of 668