Indifference puts a slow stranglehold on the throat of potential. It is what separates those who accomplish great things in life from those who wait for governments or luck to give them what they lack. It is the difference between those who are self-directed and those who see themselves as victims to a hostile world or painful personal history or the vagaries of fortune.

If you have a passion for something, pursue it! If it courses in your veins, give it life. Develop your talents. Become great at what you do. There is beauty and life and happiness and meaning in it irrespective of the dollar value others will or will not pay you to express it.

Perhaps you’ve wondered how blogging has affected the lives of bloggers. There are, of course, 6 and 7-figure income bloggers. There are world-traveling bloggers. Blogging has brought notoriety and book-signing deals and public stages for many. But for me, the most obvious reward has been a boost to my personal happiness. Perhaps yours can be enhanced by blogging as well. Click here to see how blogging can improve happiness.

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.

It’s often the very first step that’s the hardest. Writing the book is not always the toughest part. It’s writing the first word on the first page. Running a business is often easier than exercising the guts to start it. The first step of every journey is often the most difficult to take which is why relatively so few journeys are conscientiously taken and so few dreams fulfilled.

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.

Today is a blank canvas waiting for you to paint your personal masterpiece onto it. It is your unfinished Sistine Chapel, your David and Mona Lisa. This very day is waiting to be fashioned and formed into something beautiful, breathtaking and sublime.

A well-known motivational guru was once challenged about the very idea of motivation. His antagonist complained that motivation doesn’t work because it doesn’t last. It wears off, so can’t be all the guru suggested it was …

Why do we wait for anniversaries to celebrate marriage? Why do we wait for birthdays to celebrate births? And why do we wait for funerals to celebrate life? Why wait for the day of the event or the end of a life to celebrate what we could be celebrating daily?

Martin Luther King led a movement not merely by virtue of his character or charisma, but because he was able to get others to catch the vision he regularly articulated. He was thereby able to convince the nation that his dream was not only worth fighting for, but was the only dream worthy of having.

  The great thing about having children is that you get instant feedback on how Read More.

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!

Do you have an extra 5 hours a day you could devote to doing what you love? If you could find 5 hours, that would translate to and extra 34 hours a week, or 136 hours most months and 1,768 hours a year. That’s a whopping 8,840 hours in just 5 years’ time and 17,680 hours in a decade you can devote to learning something, overcoming something, developing something, to creating an amazing life. If you are anything like the national average, I can offer you the gift of those 5 extra hours, free of charge.

I challenge you to do something you’ve always wanted to do. Or learn something you’ve wanted to learn. Or go somewhere you yearn to go. A talent you wish you had. A skill you want to develop. A hobby you want to pursue. But don’t wait. Start today. Not next year or next week or in a couple days. Tomorrow. At the latest.

Happiness is not about trying to make you feel good all the time. It doesn’t always feel good to climb mountains over rugged terrain. Legs burn. Arms ache. Shins bloody. Feet blister. Toes bruise. Shoulders knot and backs grow weary. But that’s how you get to mountaintops. Happiness is not always in the valley. Quite often, it’s at the summit after a long climb. This is a post meant to get you climbing again.

Something deep inside me yearns to reach millions, to extend the message of happiness to every corner of the globe. Not being one to sit around and wait for things to happen, I’m launching The Happiness Movement. Check it out and take a look at the special invite/offer to bloggers.

Are you bored? Has life lost some of its excitement and interest? Boredom is a pernicious thief of happiness, stealing joy from the moments a life is made of. It is a symptom of something misaligned in our lives. Learn how to end boredom forever with just a few simple changes and begin to enjoy a happier, more rewarding life.

Boredom doesn’t “set in.” It doesn’t settle on us like dust in the attic or strike us like lightening or wash over us like so much rain in a thunder storm, soaking us in waves of ennui. Boredom is the natural state of the passively uncurious, the unadventurous and indecisive.

Guest post by Vlad Dolezal: Lately, I’ve seen an unusually high amount of posts in the blogosphere extolling “being happy with what you have”. They’ve been springing up like mushrooms after a mushroom soup factory explosion. Unfortunately, most authors leave out crucial details. Like the fact that being fully content with your current situation for an extended period of time is utterly nonsense.

Stop living life in neutral and start living with your foot on the gas pedal. It doesn’t have to be pushed to the floor, just enough to move you forward and get the adrenaline of passion flowing a little bit. Light the flame of purposeful living. Don’t wait. Get to filling life with the meaning and passion it lacks. Every day you don’t, you delay doing what you were created to do.