Spiritual Art Blog - *Ed P

Dreamer

Our approach to the dream workshop has changed as The Dream Room exercise (on which last week’s picture was based) is just one part of the workshop. We will be exploring more areas of dreaming and I want to include those in the picture. This is just the first rough sketch.

Dream Rooms

This is a picture for a workshop on conscious dreams. One of the exercise in the workshop is to go to a room where your fears of dreaming consciously are kept. We enter the room and discover what our fears are and hopefully can we realise what they are and deal with them.

Millionaire Happiness

Thought for the Week

Do we really need to win a million to be happy? Is there a way to feel like we've won a million without winning it? 

If we won a million today, what would we do with it? 
Pay off the mortgage                       200,000
Pay off all the home bills                    10,000
Pay off loans and credit cards             20,000
Give some money to family and friends 100,000
Buy a house to rent                          250,000
Take a nice holiday                             20,000
Total                                                        600,000

Now we are left with 400,000 which we might get 2% deposit interest on it, giving us about 150 a week and we should get about 250 a week from renting the house we just bought. That comes to 400 per week. It's not a lot but we should be able to live on it.

We have solved our main problem, having enough money to survive. Now the question is are we happy? We have little or no financial worries but most other things in our lives will be the same. We are still be the same basic person. We'll have the same attitudes, the same friends and family, the same job or occupation, if we decided to keep it, and the same body with its health or other issues.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow created a psychological theory called the Hierarchy of Needs, which puts an order on our needs. Going from the basic need of air and water to the need for personal growth. There are five different levels in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

Basic (Physiological) Needs
These include the most basic needs that are vital to survival, such as the need for air, water, food and sleep. Maslow believed that these needs are the most basic and instinctive needs because all needs become secondary until these are met. 

Security Needs
These include needs for safety and security. Security needs are important for survival, but they are not as demanding as the physiological needs. Examples of security needs include a desire for steady employment, safe neighbourhoods and shelter from the environment. 

Social Needs
These include needs for belonging, love and affection. Relationships such as friendships, romantic attachments and families help fulfil this need for companionship and acceptance, as does involvement in social, community or religious groups. 

Esteem Needs
After the first three needs have been satisfied, esteem needs becomes increasingly important. These include the need for things that reflect our self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition and accomplishment.

Self-actualising Needs
This is the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Self-actualizing people are self-aware, concerned with personal growth, less concerned with the opinions of others and interested in fulfilling their potential.

There are another two levels which Maslow didn’t include.
Self Realisation
The next level would be Self Realisation, where we get to discover who we really are. Why we are here in this life and what we have to do while we are here.

God Realisation
God Realisation is the next level. This is where we strive for an understanding of how the Higher Power, the Life Force, the Holy Spirit, God, Allah, Yahweh, Brahman, Krishna, Sugmad or whatever you wish to call it. It is the natural step after Self Realisation.

Where are we?
So where are we with our millionaire happiness? We should have the first two sorted out, Basic and Security. Have we got our social needs organised? Are we dependant on a social group, friends, family, neighbours or workmates for our happiness? Do we get our esteem from our standing with these groups? Do we need the approval of others or are more independent?

Are we at the next level, Self-actualising? On this level we tend to more interested in our personal development, being creative, solving problems, being spontaneous. Or have got to the stage where we realise who we are and our purpose in life? Or could we be on a quest to discover the Higher Power or God?

One of the things we can see here is that as one need is fulfilled, another need appears. It seems we are always going to have some need pestering us, making us a little uncomfortable and unhappy. Part of our nature is always going to be on a quest to fulfil our next need. 

This would indicate that our millionaire happiness will only last a while before a need pops up to make us a little unhappy again.

Living in the Now
There is one technique we can use to maintain an ongoing state of contentment and happiness, and that is living in the Now, being present in the moment. Making the most of here and now can help us be balanced and centred in our lives. We are not trying to anticipate the future or undo the past. If we can focus on the here and now, whatever we are doing will be good. We will do it to the best of our ability and do it with love, so that whatever we do will benefit others. We are now putting our attention on where we are at this moment and we have love flowing through us. That’s like winning a million so that we have millionaire happiness here and now, in this moment and any moment we put our attention with love on the here and now.

Wishing you millions of moments of happiness.

*Ed Parkinson


PS. Here are some other articles which may of use to you.
Can we be Happy?
Living in the Now

People’s Art Exhibition and Zombies on St. Stephens Green

News

We had a lovely weekend as far as the weather was concerned. It was a nice place to spend the weekend with a lot of friendly artists, friends, visitors, customers and zombies. Zombies?!? That’s right Zombies. Strolling along the Green was the odd zombie. As it was the first anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death, the Irish Cancer Society organised a charity collection by people dressed as zombies, based on the Thriller video. I haven’t figured out the link between cancer and MJ’s Thriller but here’s a video of the march of the zombies which happened when they all got together.

Inspirational Happiness Quotes

“Before you can improve your life and find a measure of happiness, you must learn to do one thing every day out of pure love.”
 Harold Klemp

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence”
 Aristotle

“When you express your gratitude, you will bring joy to others’ lives. When others know joy, your life will be filled with happiness.”
 Arthur Dobrin 

“I wish people could achieve what they think would bring them happiness in order for them to realize that that’s not really what happiness is.”
 Alanis Morisette 

“Be happy. It's one way of being wise.”
 Sidonie Gabrielle 

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
 Robert Heinlein 

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
 Herman Cain 

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.”
 Marcel Pagnol 

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”
 Albert Einstein 

“Don't rely on someone else for your happiness and self worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can't love and respect yourself - no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are - completely; the good and the bad - and make changes as YOU see fit - not because you think someone else wants you to be different.”
  Stacey Charter 

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
 Buddha 

“It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”
 Dale Carnegie 

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”
 Eskimo Proverb 

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
 Oscar Wilde 

“Nothing can bring you happiness but yourself.”
 Ralph Waldo Emerson 

“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.”
 Hugh Downs 

“Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”
 Francesca Reigler 

“Everywhere you go, take a smile with you.”
 Sasha Azevedo

Looking for Guidance

Thought for the Week
At many points in our lives we look for guidance. The first place we look for guidance is within ourselves but to get the most out of our inner resources we need to understand how our inner selves work and how we are constructed. We have a story to illustrate the point. The story is in ‘Bold Text’ and the insight is in the ‘Normal Text’ below it. It might be wise to read the whole story in Bold Text first and then read the insights afterwards.

Exploring the world
A little girl decided to go exploring the world outside her back garden gate. She pushed open the gate and looked at the forest that lay in the valley below. She walked, rolled and played as she went down the hill. Soon she was in among the trees. 

Angry
There she saw some blackberries and grabbed some. She hadn’t seen the thorns and cut herself. She felt the pain and immediately got angry. She picked up a stick and started beating the blackberry bush. As she did she got caught up in the briars and thorns which cut her again and again as he beat them. Eventually she gave up as she could see she wasn’t going to achieve anything. 

Our side of the story
When we hit a difficulty or challenge our first reaction can often be an emotional one. We get upset, we get angry and defensive, hitting out at anyone or anything in our reach. This often causes destruction physically and emotionally to those around us. We can burn people with our anger or pour cold water on them with our cold and hostile attitudes.

She then marched off ignoring everything around her, only being aware of her scraped and cut skin. Soon enough she realised she was lost. She tried to remember her route back but she couldn’t get it right. It seemed she was getting even more lost all the time.

The next resource we look to is our memories. Have we been here before? What happened in the past? Have we gone through similar challenges before? We search through these memories to find solutions that worked previously. For some challenges we may discover talents and skills we didn’t know we had. We may call on a skill we had in a previous life and use it to get us through our current difficulty.

Think of a way out
Then she sat down and tried to think of a way out of her predicament. As she had walked down into the forest it would be logical to walk up out of the forest. She walked up and up and up. She walked a long way up, at least the same length as she had walked down but she still found herself in the forest.

Our mind is the next port of call. With its wonderful logic it can help us work out the best strategy in solving a problem. Using the mind we can estimate what will happen, if we go in a particular direction. For regular challenges we have a pattern available which we can use to sort them out. It’s a logical method: we do this, then that happens, we do that, then the other happens and eventually we get to sort out the problem. While this works a lot of the time there are occasions where logic won’t help us.

Then she got a feeling that she should walk over to a big tree in the distance. It was downhill and it really didn’t make sense but she might as well do it. When she arrived at the big tree she saw a gap in the foliage. Through it she could see the roofs of some houses in the distance. “Wow, they could the houses of our neighbours”, she thought. She raced off downhill in the direction of the roofs and came to a small stream. She found a crossing and then proceeded up the other side. Soon she was lost again.

Our next source of solutions is our intuition. Sometimes referred to as our subconscious. Our intuition comes to us as subtle hints and feelings. Often the intuitive message doesn’t make logical sense. We might get an urge to call someone we haven’t spoken to for a long time. We may get a feeling that we should go in a particular direction despite the fact that it is longer than our usual route.

She was lost
Now it was getting dark. The sun was going down. It was getting colder and she had run out of options. She cried. She was lost, had cuts all over her arms and legs, she was hungry and all alone. She cried “Please God, help me. What can I do to find my way home? Please help me”. She lay down to rest her tired and torn body.

In the quietness she heard a soft humming noise. She listened to it for a while and began humming along with it. It helped her feel calm. She picked herself up and walked aimlessly along. She came across some more blackberries. This time she was more careful as she picked the fruit. As her hunger subsided she began to appreciate the blackberry bush for the food it had given her. She was warmed by its generosity despite her earlier rash treatment of it. She was feeling a lot better now.

The final source of enlightenment is our true selves, Soul. Soul is the source of the messages from our intuition. If we can develop our awareness so that we can pick up this wisdom from Soul, we will have a happier and blessed life. Soul has the advantage of seeing all of our inner elements together. It gets an overview of our whole existence and how we interact with the other Souls in our lives and in the world around us. If we can use this source of wisdom in our lives we will learn a lot and have a lot of fun in the process.

Back home
Then she her name being called in the distance. She walked quickly in the direction of the voice. Within a few steps she was out of the forest and making her way to the light shining from her garden and her father’s voice calling her home.

An excellent way of connecting to Soul is to use the HU Song. It works well for a lot of people and it should work for you too.

Wishing you wise and pleasant journeys.

*Ed Parkinson

People’s Art Exhibition on St. Stephens Green

News

On the 25th, 26th and 27th of June, this coming weekend, the People’s Art Exhibition will take place on St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland. It is always a creative and colourful affair and if the weather is nice it is a good place to spend some time enjoying the art and artists of Ireland. I’ll be there on the East side of the Green and hopefully I’ll see you there too.
The video below is from one of last years exhibitions.

Inspirational Guidance Quotes

“People who ride easily through their turning points reach into a tool box they have built over the years…Like dream study, inner guidance, and a daily practice, such as prayer, contemplation or meditation, that grows their strength, purpose and direction.”
 Mary Carroll Moore

“I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.”
 Dalai Lama

“Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction”
 Anne Sullivan

“Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.”
 Buddha

“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.”
 Henry Miller

“Every time you don't follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.”
 Shakti Gawain

“Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another.” 
 Immanuel Kant 

“Go to your bosom,
Knock there and ask your heart what it doth know.”
 William Shakespeare

“Our dreams can be a source of genius for us.”
 Bryan W. Mattimore

“Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.” 
 Julia Cameron

“As Soul, you are like a balloon that rises above the ground. The higher you go the farther you can see. And the farther you can see the better you can plan your life.”
 Harold Klemp

Looking for Guidance

At this point I’ve begun work on the final piece. Here you see some of the characters rendered in the 3D programme. I’ve dressed some of the models but there is still a lot to be done yet.

How can we be conscious in our dreams?

Thought for the Week

Why would we want to be conscious in our dreams? There are a number of benefits, such as insights into various situations and events in our lives. We can sort out issues and solve problems and we can enjoy a trip somewhere we love or somewhere beautiful we’ve never been before. So how can we be conscious in our dreams?

Daydreams
Daydreams are an easy way of dreaming consciously. We simple loose ourselves in our thoughts. We wander off to wherever or thoughts take us. As children in school, many of us would have wandered off in our imagination, during a boring class. It is something we can still do. We just need to take time to do and enjoy it. 

Return to a dream
Another way of being conscious while dreaming is to return to a dream just after we wake up. This works well if we want to change something in the dream.  

I have used this technique after waking up from a dream where I was unhappy with my behaviour. I may have been selfish, cruel or thoughtless. When I wake up from such a dream and realise I was unkind, I think about what I should have done better. Then while still lying in bed half asleep, I’ll go back to the dream and replay the events until I get to the point where I want to change my actions. I now correct my misdeed and try to bring about a better result. While I may be aware that I am using in my imagination and I’m not in the ‘reality of the dream’, it usually makes me feel a little better, as I’ve now made an attempt to correct my error.

Nightmares
Another way we become conscious of our dreams is when we wake up from a nightmare. We are suddenly back in our bed happy that we've escaped from the trouble we were experiencing. This is one area where we cannot deny the reality of our dream worlds. As we go through the nightmare, we are all too aware of its reality. We know it is real because we are there. All our attention is on the scene which we usually want to escape from.

Dream Master
A technique for dealing with nightmares is to ask for help from the Dream Master. The Dream Master is a guide standing by to help us when we ask for assistance, but we must ask. He won’t interfere or enter a person’s dream without our invitation. 

We can contemplate on an issue in a dream or a nightmare, and ask the Dream Master for guidance in dealing with it. If we go back to the dream with the Dream Master beside us, we can ask for advice on dealing with the issue. If we get some insights we should write them in our dream journal. If or when we find ourselves back in the dream or nightmare we can ask the Dream Master to help us deal with it. We may find that some of the insights we recorded in our journal will prove useful.

HU Song
Chanting HU during a dream can help bring peace and understanding to the situation. When we chant it here in the physical world, HU connects us with our true self, Soul. If you are in a difficult situation in a dream, try remembering to sing HU. It works just as well in the inner and dreams worlds.

Edison method
Edison, the inventor of the light bulb and hundreds of other inventions had an interesting way of remembering his dreams. He used ball bearings and steel buckets to collect insights from his dreams. He would take time to snooze in the afternoons. He did this sitting in his chair. In his hands he held a number of steel ball bearings and on both sides of his chair he had steel buckets. As he dosed off his hands would relax and the ball bearings would fall with a loud crash into the bucket. The noise would wake him up. He'd then try to remember his dream and take note of any ideas or insights he could recall. This was one of his methods of finding ideas for the things he wanted to invent.

Dream Journal
Keeping a dream journal is key to remembering our dreams and gaining insights from them. The reason we don’t remember our dreams is because they do not belong in our physical world. They are part of our inner worlds and have nothing to do with our immediate survival here in the physical. 

However there is a lot of wisdom and insights to be had from our dreams, if we take the trouble of writing them down. Keeping a journal of our dreams helps us remember them. As we write we will often recall even more details. After a number of months writing our dreams we may begin to see a pattern of events, symbols or answers. We may be able to tie events in our dreams to events in our physical lives. We then begin to build up an understanding of what different symbols mean or relate to in our outer life. This is how we can begin to uncover the gems of wisdom hidden in our dreams.
 
The use of any of these techniques will show us how we can be conscious of our dreams and become more conscious IN our dreams. They will in turn reveal wisdom and insights which can help us on our daily life.

Wishing you sweet insightful dreams.

*Ed Parkinson

People’s Art Exhibition on St. Stephens Green

News

On the 25th, 26th and 27th of June, the People’s Art Exhibition will take place on St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland. It is always a creative and colourful affair and if the weather is nice it is a good place to spend some time enjoying the art and artists of Ireland. I’ll be there on the East side of the Green and hopefully I’ll see you there too.

Inspirational Dream Quotes

“Very often, dreams speak to us in specific detail. They show us what we need to do now to heal ourselves or better our lives.”
 Harold Klemp

“A rich dessert of many layers, the realm of dreams will take you far beyond your daily life into levels of love and awareness that you have only dreamed possible.”
 Debbie Johnson

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.”
 Dale Carnegie 

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
 Henry David Thoreau 

“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.”
 Pope John XXIII 

“Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day. Such is the salutation to the dawn.”
 Sanskrit Proverb 

“I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can be together all the time.”
 Calvin & Hobbes quotes (Fictional characters from the comic series created by Bill Watterson.) 

“When I consider this carefully, I find not a single property which with certainty separates the waking state from the dream. How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?”
 Rene Descartes 

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
 T.E. Lawrence 

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
Walt Disney 

“Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you.”
Marsha Norman 

“Dreams are today's answers to tomorrow's questions.” 
Edgar Cayce 

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” 
 Christopher Reeve 

“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” 
 Robert Kennedy 

Looking for Guidance

This composition is going to be the final one. The position of the characters and lightening is about right. There are enough elements in place to be able to create the final renders in the 3D programme and then begin paining over it to add the clothing and atmosphere. Now it’s time to get into the details.

How can we be happy?

Thought for the Week
Let’s be aware that we are in a world of opposites. There is up and down, hot and cold, good and bad, happiness and unhappiness. If we are aware of these opposites we can begin to balance them so that we are not driven too far in either direction. Our challenge in living life is to live it in a balanced fashion. If we can recognise that there are times when we will be happy and unhappy and take an overview of our situation, we can live a more contented life.

If we strive to be happy all the time, we are striving for an unbalanced state. However we can be content and live in a balanced state of mind, if we are not too attached emotionally or mentally to the elements, people and conditions in our lives. If we can see our lives is a series of lessons where we are learning something new with each event that makes us happy and unhappy, we begin to have a higher viewpoint of our lives. We can watch our lives as if we are the director of a film. We see how we act when we are happy and unhappy. We observe our reactions and learn from them.

How can we be happy?
Listed below are a number of techniques we can use to bring more happiness into our lives.

Gratitude List
A great way of appreciating life and what it has given us is to create a Gratitude List. On this list we can write anything we are grateful for. A lot of things will be personal to us like our family and friends but there are a lot of things we have in common on our list. There are lots of things we take for granted and without them our lives would be more difficult. Things like our ability to:
Read,
Breath unaided,
Feed ourselves,
Walk and use our limbs.

We can also be grateful for:
The food and shelter we have, the roads and infrastructure,
Communications within our communities, 
Radio, television, internet, newspapers, magazines, books,
Etc., etc.

Going over this list in times of unhappiness can help us realise that life is not as bad as it seems, we do have a lot to be grateful for.

HU Song
Singing HU on your outgoing breath, while in a quiet place, will help link us to Soul, the true happy part of ourselves. Soul is like the film director of your life and singing HU helps us reconnect with It. 

Be careful where you put your attention
If you watch horror movies be prepared to be frightened. If you watch comedy you’ll probably laugh. If you think happy thoughts you’ll probably be happy. If you think sad thoughts you’ll likely be sad. Where we put our attention is where we are. We need to be careful where we have our attention as that is the place we are in that moment. Keep positive, constructive thoughts and images to the forefront of our mind and we will have a more positive and happier state of being.

Give love
“To get love we must first give love” is an old and true saying. We need to let love flow through us so that love will brighten our lives. Do a little something for someone without expecting any reward or thanks. Our life will brighten and become happier. 
See Secrets of service for more.

Live in the moment
Living in the moment and making the most of here and now can help us be balanced and centred in our lives. We are not trying to anticipate the future or undo the past. If we can do what we can do now, focusing on the here and now, whatever we are doing will be good. We will do it to the best of our ability. That is all we can do. 

Summary
How can we be happy? Putting all this together, our Gratitude List and singing the HU Song will help us appreciate the gifts we have in our lives. If we are careful where we put our attention and give unconditional love as we live in the moment we can become a happier Soul. Our love and happiness will flow out into our worlds and brighten the worlds of all we come in contact with.

Wishing you a happy and loving life.

*Ed Parkinson


For more information on these techniques you may like to read these articles:
HU Song – Spiritual Tools, the HU Song

Attention – Pay Attention to our Attention

Unconditional Love – The Secrets of Service

Living in the moment – Make the Moment Special, enjoy it Now, Seeking to live in the Now

Sandymount Art on the Green, Dublin 4

News

As part of the Sandymount Community Day organised by the Sandymount and Merrion Residents Association, there will be an Art on the Green (Sandymount Green) exhibition on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th June. That’s this coming weekend.

This is the first time I will be exhibiting on Sandymount Green but it is similar to exhibitions like People’s Art on St. Stephen’s Green. There will be a number of artists exhibiting at Snadymount Art on the Green and if you are in the area call by and say hello. It would be nice to see you.

People’s Art on St. Stephen’s Green will take place on the last weekend of this month. If I don’t see you in Sandymout, hopefully we’ll meet on St. Stephen’s Green.

Inspirational Happiness Quotes

“Life is a stream of happy and unhappy experiences, because that leads to Soul’s purification. How do you get by in the dark times? Try to give love to someone, especially then.”
 Harold Klemp

“Learn to be happy, here and now, under all conditions and to include others’ happiness in our own joy. Go out of your way to make others happy.”
 Paramahansa Yogananda

“Fill your basket with the fruit of joy.
Never a man or woman annoy.
But flash divine bliss which you enjoy.

“Sow your rare peace of mind like wild oats.
Drape the world in love’s colourful coats,
Like black seas lit with regatta boats.

“Then watch heaven flow around your feet, 
Like purest of rivers, fresh and neat,
To cool your head from life’s baking heat.”
 Gabriel Ezutah

“It's good to be just plain happy, it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss.”
 Henry Miller 

“Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.”
 Helen Keller 

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
 Robert Heinlein 

“Happiness is a byproduct of an effort to make someone else happy”
 Gretta Brooker Palmer 

“I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.”
 John Stuart Mill 

“You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”
 Dale Carnegie