Choosing Happiness Stephanie Dowrick Quotes

Your attitude to life is far more important in determining your happiness than your money, appearance, social status or talent. ~ Stephanie Dowrick

Happiness can come in a single moment. And in a single moment it can go again. But a single moment does not create it. Happiness is created through countless choices made and then made again throughout a lifetime. You are its host as well as its guest. You give it form, shape, individuality, texture, tone. And what it allows you to give can change your world. Happiness can be stillness. But it isn't still. It wraps, enchants, heals, consoles, soothes, delights, calms, inspires and connects. It is on your face and in your body. It is in your life and being. ~ Stephanie Dowrick

Happiness
like love
is itself an attitude. ~ Stephanie Dowrick

Whatever it is we truly believe to be true, and that also goes with what we are afraid is true, is going to have a reflective consequence in physical reality.

The idea of choice is, we might be unconsciously choosing to buy into things that are out of alignment with who we truly are or who we prefer to be. And it's those choices to hold onto things that are out of alignment with us, that cause the consequence. ~ Darryl Anka

This was, I thought, why love was so dangerous. I searched for the right words, when a certain warmth stole over me at the realization that her happiness was more important than fear. Even if she left me ... ~ Stephanie Dray

The way I define happiness is being the creator of your experience, choosing to take pleasure in what you have, right now, regardless of the circumstances, while being the best you that you can be. ~ Leo Babauta

What did the Revolution mean to the Native Americans, the Indians? They had been ignored by the fine words of the Declaration, had not been considered equal, certainly not in choosing those who would govern the American territories in which they lived, nor in being able to pursue happiness as they had pursued it for centuries before the white Europeans arrived. Now, with the British out of the way, the Americans could begin the inexorable process of pushing the Indians off their lands, killing them if they resisted. In short, as Francis Jennings puts it, the white Americans were fighting against British imperial control in the East, and for their own imperialism in the West. ~ Howard Zinn

Love teaches you to care for others. It also gives you your best chance to grow up. ~ Stephanie Dowrick

I believe in a very deep way that our past is what brings us to our future. When I pray for someone, I thank God for every day of their life, for every moment, for every heartbreak and each moment of happiness that has brought them to be this person at this time. I believe in mining through the darkest seasons in our lives and choosing to believe that we'll find something important every time. ~ Shauna Niequist

You've given me everything I need of you-thanks to you I have all my heart desires, all I thought I might never have. All I need for a wonderful, fulfilling future. And I nearly lost it all."
She held his gaze but was wise enough not to interrupt. If she had...
He drew breath and forged on, "Nearly dying clarified things. When you stand on the border between life and death, the truly important things are easy to discern. One of the things I saw and finally understood was that only fools and cowards leave the truth of love unsaid. Only the weak leave love unacknowledged."
Holding her gaze, all but lost in the shimmery blue of her eyes, he raised her hand to his lips, gently kissed. "So, my darling Heather, even though you already know it, let me put the truth-my truth-into words. I love you. With all my heart, to the depths of my soul. And I will love you forever, until the day I die."
Her smile lit his world. "Just as well." Happiness shone in her eyes. She pressed his fingers. "Because I plan to be with you, by your side, every day for the rest of your life, and in spirit far beyond. I'm yours for all eternity."
Smiling, he closed his hand about hers. "Mine to protect for our eternity."
Yes. Neither said the word, yet the sense of it vibrated in the air all around them.
A high-pitched giggle broke the spell, had them both looking along the path.
TO Lucilla and Marcus, who slipped out from behind a raised bed and raced toward them.
Stephanie Laurens

Don't be afraid to stand tall in YOUR truth! Boldly and confidently face everything that has, and is, keeping you bound. Fight for your inner peace! Fight for your happiness! Fight for everything and everybody that's important to you! You are NOT a victim! Don't even play into that. You owe it to yourself to LIVE! Live your life without the regrets, without the resentments, without the unforgiveness, without the blame game, without the self-pity, without any and everything that keeps you from experiencing true joy within! You are too important to waste your life away! Learn to appreciate and value your life, but most importantly, learn to appreciate and value yourself! You count too, no matter what you've done! ~ Stephanie Lahart

I want to show it's possible to be happy and enjoy life, even if things seem awful. Did you know that, after a few years, lottery winners go back to the exact same levels of happiness as before they won? And people in serious accidents do, too, once they've adjusted to their changed lives? Happiness is a state of mind, Annie. ~ Eva Woods

Above everything else, genuinely love yourself first. Self-love is powerful and it's the best love that you will ever have. When you love who YOU are, your relationships will be healthier and your life will be happier. Self-love sets the standard in how we allow others to treat us and how we treat ourselves. Your happiness and well-being is important. Protect it by always valuing who you are! ~ Stephanie Lahart

All around the country, individuals are choosing to redefine their lives and the pursuit of happiness in ways much closer to the original notion put forth by our Founding Fathers. Their notion of the "pursuit of happiness" wasn't just about acquiring money and power, but about doing your part to add to the civic happiness of the community. ~ Arianna Huffington

But maybe happiness isn't in the choosing. Maybe it's in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along. ~ Lauren Oliver

And in those changes to the Scriptures of your faith you only prove that you didn't know what you were doing in the first place. Picking and choosing your faith promises the ultimate freedom to be who you want and do what you want, but eventually it will only prove to you that to live for yourself and to make your law based on your own happiness is to become the slave of your imperfect self and to be tortured and tormented by your own pride and failure. ~ Hayley DiMarco

It is precisely in relationships of intimacy that your craziness (and mine) will be hardest to conceal. ~ Stephanie Dowrick

It is you who are choosing, in any moment, to be happy or choosing to be sad, or choosing to be angry, or forgiving, or enlightened, or whatever. You are choosing. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

Happiness is a color that you can never run out of. You can paint a picture or an illusion with happiness. It's a color that you always pick, before actually choosing a color. ~ Lionel Suggs

Choosing happiness, in large part, means consciously refusing to choose unhappiness. ~ Art E. Berg

Stephanie thought about the world she'd grown up in, and how different it was from the world she'd been introduced to, and yet how similar. There was joy and happiness in both, just as there was heartbreak and horror. There was good and evil and everything in between, and these qualities seemed to be shared equally in the worlds of the magical and the mundane. It was her life now. She couldn't imagine living without either one. ~ Derek Landy

I have been using the word 'other' as though it were self-explanatory, yet who the 'other' is must always be something of a mystery. It is a mystery at an immediate level in the sense that no person is entirely knowable. ~ Stephanie Dowrick

It had been so long since Makani had felt any amount of genuine, unadulterated happiness that she'd forgotten that sometimes it could hurt as much as sadness. His declaration pierced through the muscle of her heart like a skillfully thrown knife.

It was the kind of pain that made her feel alive. ~ Stephanie Perkins

[ ... ] as I have seen with other people whose sense of their work is vocational rather than pragmatic, my desire to write, to understand things at a depth I can reach in no other way, pushes me to write and go on writing, even when my wants - for an easier or more sociable life, or one less exposed and fraught - are certainly well known to my rational mind. p.293 ~ Stephanie Dowrick

Crying is NOT a weakness. Cry as much as you have to. Don't be afraid or ashamed to let your tears flow. Crying is a natural part of life. We all have feelings, and sometimes crying is all that we can do. Crying can help relieve the pain, hurt, disappointments, and all of the other things that life can throw our way. Know that it's okay, and know that you're going to be okay as well. Wishing You: Peace of mind, Comfort, Happiness, Joy within and LOVE. ~ Stephanie Lahart

Believing, desiring, deciding, and choosing correctly are the simple actions that define an increase in happiness and an increase in the inner assurance that transcends this life. ~ Benjamin De Hoyos

You know, kid, ethics isn't about choosing between right and wrong; it's about choosing between grey and grey. It's about choosing between two equally desirable but mutually exclusive courses of action. Freedom or security? Courage or comfort? Self-examination or blissful happiness? Column A or Column B? ~ Will Ferguson

Sometimes customizing is necessary because of an injury or the inability to do, for a short or long period, the kind of exercise you formerly did. When you're used to customizing for fun, doing it under duress won't seem like such an imposition. Either way, experiment until you find activities that make you happy as well as healthy. Choose your exercise using the same criteria you'd apply to choosing a date
that is, attractive to you and able to hold your interest for an hour. ~ Victoria Moran

Dreaming is essential to manifesting your future, but it's all too easy to sink into the trap that life is always greener somewhere else. Part of dreaming is being content where you are at in this precise moment, choosing happiness now instead of your happy being contingent on "when all your dreams come true". ~ Alexis Jones

I've learned that if I never leave those areas of my life that feel comfortable, I'll never have a chance at a greater happiness. ~ Stephanie Perkins

Whatever you do, do it with purpose. Being focused is not something to be ashamed of. It is something to be proud of. When you know what are you are doing and have a clear vision of where you are going, you will not need to chase opportunities. Opportunities will seek you. Happiness will chase you. And, instead of being a choice, you will be the one choosing. ~ Najwa Zebian

You are a self and an other.
Your 'others' are in part your own creation.
This in turn affects and shapes your experiences of self.
Your levels of self-awareness and self-acceptance largely shape how you perceive others. p.231 ~ Stephanie Dowrick

To limit yourself to a label of "alcoholic" is masochistic and false if you have awakened a deeper spiritual identity within and have come to know your true self as unconditioned pure awareness. This doesn't mean that recovering alcoholics don't have to be concerned with relapsing, they must always remain vigilant. The power of addiction should not be underestimated. This exercise in vigilance can become a spiritual tool of liberation as well. Always being aware of choosing between real happiness and false happiness is also the discrimination required to attain enlightenment. ~ Deepak Chopra

[ ... ] the responsibility for their wellbeing and for the fundamental meaning they give to their own life must, in adulthood, be theirs. To accept the burden that someone 'can't live without you' is unrealistic. It infantilises that person and overburdens you. p.226 ~ Stephanie Dowrick

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

We may reconcile ourselves to the world at our peril, but it will never reconcile itself to us ... This unwillingness to die, doth actually impeach us of high treason against the Lord : is it not a choosing of earth before him ; and taking these present things for our happiness, and consequently asking them our very God (469)? ~ Richard Baxter

An important decision I made was to resist playing the Blame Game. The day I realized that I am in charge of how I will approach problems in my life, that things will turn out better or worse because of me and nobody else, that was the day I knew I would be a happier and healthier person. And that was the day I knew I could truly build a life that matters. ~ Steve Goodier

Heir to your own karma doesn't mean 'You get what you deserve.' I think it means 'You get what you get.' Bad things happen to good people. My happiness depending on my action means, to me, that it depends on my action of choosing compassion
for myself as well as for everyone else
rather than contention. [p.61] ~ Sylvia Boorstein

It should not be difficult to accept the idea that someone else is, in 'your experience of them', in part your self-creation. But it is difficult and sometimes impossible. Impossible because accepting the idea that you are in part creating your 'other' forces you to take on board a high degree of self responsibility. Few of us easily do that. p.234 ~ Stephanie Dowrick

There are always choices there for you.

In other words, you can look at the hole in the wall or you can look at the beautiful painting.
You can look at the lightbulb that is out, or you can see the lightbulb that is working.
You can look at your mate in his positive aspect or you can look at your mate in his negative aspect.
You can look at your own body and find something that pleases you or find something that doesn't.
You can remember your childhood and find something of pleasure or you can find something that makes you feel discouraged.
You can remember a compliment or you can remember somebody down on you.
You can remember your love or you can remember your hate.

In other words, you have that choice in every moment. ~ Abraham Hicks

DANCE… My heartbeat, my soul, my TRUE happiness. ~ Stephanie Lahart

A man or woman becomes happy by choosing happiness every day. ~ Marty Rubin

Christian Faith
For me, being a Christian is all about true love. The Gospel of John instructs us, "Dear Friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." I believe that first we need to love ourselves, even when we are told that we do not deserve love. Then we need to love others, especially those who have not been treated with love. And of course, we need to love Jesus. Love for Jesus can be the foundation for living a good life, a life full of compassion and joy. Loving Jesus is where I believe a Christian life starts, because that love spreads all around, to people, animals, and the world.

Animal Rights
During my life so far, animals have brought me joy and comfort when I thought that I would never find happiness. My bunny Neon taught me so much about unconditional love. This experience showed me that animals have souls deserving of love just as much as humans, and they can be some of the purest examples of God's love on Earth. I believe we can all show animals the compassion and love they deserve by choosing products that are fur-free and cruelty-free and by eating a vegan diet. Even people who aren't prepared to commit to a vegan lifestyle can make thoughtful everyday choices that reduce needless cruelty against animals.

Human Rights
I have myself been a victim of abuse, so I know how hopeless life can seem t ~ Shenita Etwaroo

Imagine the world we would live in if we dared to see all of life as sacred - unconditionally. ~ Stephanie Dowrick

So often when we are unhappy it is becasue we are taking too much responsibility or we are taking too little. Instead of being assertive and choosing clearly for ourselves, we might become aggressive (choosing for others) or passive (letting others choose for us), or passive-aggressive (choosing for others by preventing them from achieving what they are choosing for themselves). ~ Edith Eva Eger

Why are you choosing to be unhappy, when you're created for happiness? ~ Debasish Mridha

Finding a life partner is like choosing a bed. You need one as a friend either in times of health or sickness. Freshness or weariness. Happiness or sadness. And we can be certain that we've picked the right one without having to sleep with it first. ~ Isman H. Suryaman

Returning from that task and a visit to a nearby tepee,his eyes twinkled with pride as he offered a tiny rawhide pouch full of elk's teeth to Jesse. She caught her breath.Only two teeth were saved from each elk,and to be able to decorate an entire dress with teeth would put her in a position of envy in the tribe. "How long have you been saving these?" she asked.
"I am a skillful hunter...it is nothing," came the proud reply. "I only had to get them back from Running Bear. He has been keeping them for me."
Jesse worked all afternoon to add the elks' teeth to her new dress.She scolded herself for her pridefulness, but when she and Rides the Wind attended the celebration,she could not contain her happiness at the admiring glances that came her way.Rides the Wind could not have said what made him prouder-the wife he believed to be beautiful or the brave son who had earned the name Soaring Eagle. ~ Stephanie Grace Whitson