Are you happy? Really happy? Do you want to be? Most of us have at least had moments of happiness, fleeting or infrequent. We’ve experienced joy in spurts, like a whisper or a puff of smoke. Others seem to almost always to be happy. What’s the difference? Come see and begin today to improve the quality of your life.

Are you an emotional bully? Perhaps you suspect you may be, but are not quite sure. We often go through life with blinders on, very aware of what others are doing, seeing “clearly” what motivates their behavior, while not clearly seeing our own. Instead, we justify and excuse in ourselves the very same behavior we would never tolerate in others. That being the all-too-frequent case, the following characteristics should provide insight into what may have largely been ignored until now.

What do your kids most need from you? Here are 10 gifts you can give your children that will change their lives … and yours … forever. Come see why parenthood is such serious business. There’s no other business, in fact, more important you can spend your time and energy building. Average parenting requires average effort. Great parenting requires more of us. It requires us to work on the inside, on the person who is the parent. Offering these gifts will require that deep commitment to what’s best to raise happy, loving and decent men and women.

In the spirit of the New Year and as a reflection of the human desire to rise to the moral occasion, here is a list of 45 suggestions to become a little more devoted to timeless principles in our ongoing effort at becoming a better person in 2012.

Welcome to my first post in a 3-post series that will now be a regular feature here at M2bH. We bloggers like to quote people like Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi for their wisdom and eloquence. But I’ve found many “ordinary” bloggers to be incredibly wise and eloquent too. I use their quotes as springboards into the topic, in this series, on happiness.

Inaction is one of the universal anti-principles to living – it produces apathy and boredom, laziness, anxiety, ill health and depression. Happiness, on the other hand, requires action. We must do certain things. And as we do them consistently, over time, we reap the benefits of a happier life. Action takes effort. Doing requires determination and desire. But doing can also lead to being.

Every action we take creates a ripple that undulates out into the larger currents of life. Each of the hundreds of daily decisions we sometimes only half-consciously make is the equivalent to the act of tossing pebbles in a pond. They splash and start ripples that quiver across the pools of life in ever-enlarging circles of influence. What kind of ripples are you making in life’s pond?