When it seems like everyone has betrayed you, don’t lose hope. Remember, most people are decent. Even when it is difficult to see, most are behind the scenes of life, doing the work of living decent lives.

The truth of the matter is that the mind records all it experiences. Add sharp emotion to the experience, and you have a recipe for an elephant-like memory of the nitty gritty. So can forgetting the acts of others against us truly be forgotten? Not likely. So what could the admonition to forgive and forget really mean then?

It’s my birthday today and was going to post another installment of “Things you don’t know about me” when I decided on a whim to share my personal happiness story with you instead. Here are 22 reasons I’m happy.

It’s been said that courage is the point at which all other virtues are tested. And indeed, there are not many virtues that will not be tested at some point and in some way. Our patience, trust, kindness, compassion, perseverance, and other personal virtues will hit that wall, push up against that moment, that set of conditions or that person who will push you to the edge.

When life gets dark and difficult, when it gets dim and murky, when I’m disillusioned or frustrated or down, there are things I can do to feel better. But one source of strength rises to the top of the list for me.

I remember hearing a story of a pig who thought he was a man. The other barn animals laughed him to scorn, held up pictures and diagrams to demonstrate quite clearly, and beyond refute, that the pig was indeed just a pig. Then the pig walked out of the barn, shook his head in disbelief, and drove off in his red convertible.

Guilt is a tool or mechanism that a well-working conscience uses to communicate to the heart. When we don’t live up to our values, our hearts are pricked with guilt, shame and regret. But we’re not supposed to stay there, letting the guilt settle in and take up residency. It’s a warning signal in the dark of our choices that sends the message to course correct.

Does your moral compass point true north? Or is it a little askew? And how would you know? There are, of course, people now and through history who thought they were doing right when everyone else knew otherwise. So how do you know where your moral compass is pointing?

Life is a journey, a challenge to be mastered, but more importantly, to be learned from. But lessons, and the growth they promote, don’t come to us by taking the easy path. Downhill is still downhill. It takes you to the bottom. Paths of least resistance have always been attractive … until you get to where such paths take us.

Have you heard of the parable of the long spoons? It goes something like this: A man was once taken on a tour of hell and was surprised by what he saw …

For this Valentine’s Day, I offer you some of my most pithy thoughts on humanity’s favorite topic. Perhaps you’ll even find a nugget of wisdom buried amongst all the pith as well!

Ideas are powerful things that can take on a life of their own, digging like roots deep into our hearts and souls and branching out into the circumstances of our lives as we nourish and tend to the germinating seed of thought. Come see my top 10 favorite ideas captured in picture quotes, ready for bite-sized consumption!

It’s been said that when we assume, we make an “ass” out of “u” and “me” (ass+u+me). But are we to assume nothing in life? I believe some assumptions are helpful, even essential to a happy life. Come see if you agree with these seven assumptions I make every single day.

“Who you want to be is irrelevant to who you are if who you daily choose to be is different than who you wish you were.” Who we are and who we believe we should be are not always one and the same. Your Ideal You is likely somewhat higher than your Actual You. And so we read posts like this one looking for inspiration to nudge us down that path. Come see three areas we can improve on to become better people.

Until recently, willpower seemed like the unwanted stepchild of the character family. But willpower, it turns out, is not a self-imposed prison sentence at all. It actually frees and liberates us to pursue our best selves as possible.

There are 2 complementary ways to learn how to do anything, whether it’s driving, playing a sport, a musical instrument, starting a business or becoming happy. One way is to learn what to do and how to do it. The other is to learn what not to do and how to avoid it. This is a sort of anti-map to happiness. A map that identify the potholes and detours and debris along the path to a happier life.

The questions we never ask can never produce the answers they would have led to. The questions we never ask fail to open paths or illuminate lives or introduce possibilities or redirect courses. The questions we never ask keep lights dim, insight shallow and lives floating, drifting and sometimes sinking. Drift and sink no more. Asked yourself these transformational questions?

Why do we take the whole of humanity and carve them up into distinct categories of subdivided, semi-related, subgroups, sorted and classified as separate clusters of generalized identities, all tagged and marked for racial and lingual and socioeconomic distinction, subsectioned into demarcated and clearly separated differences? Why not think of others the way my son does?

Does happiness truly matter? Does your happiness really make a difference? I contend it does. As a matter of fact, there is little in life more important than how happy you are. I would even add that happiness is the very object and design of your existence. This is not as far-fetched as you may think. See why.

When you hold on to resentment or anger or hatred, letting it eat you up from the inside out, your mind gets stuck in a continuous loop. You replay the offense over and over again, unable to free yourself from the person you most want to get away from. Well, it’s time that ends. Learning to forgive your offender will finally free yourself of that mental loop and open yourself to a life filled with more love and more happiness.