Daily Gratitude: “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”

What are you thinking about? Do you even know?

“What? How can I control all that goes through my mind? There’s too much going on.”

It starts with awareness and recognizing what you’re thinking about. Maybe even not them down.

Are you thinking about mundane things? About your next oil change? About the neighbor who plays their TV too loud? About people and things you love? About the world?

Why not make a list of things that make you happy. When you find yourself thinking about something that’s getting your blood boiling, take out that list and pick one item to think about.

For instance, I would have my last little “puppy” (she lived longer than the others – to 14 years), on that list. There’s a lot of construction here in San Antonio and you’re stuck waiting in long lines almost as if in the old days you’d be waiting for the new iPhone. It can get frustrating. But all I have to do is pull up memories of her and I can be smiling with love in seconds. I can even feel it in my heart. And that’s such a better feeling than frustration or anger.

What’s on your happiness list?

Daily Gratitude: “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

Can you identify with this? Think of a time when you were starting to fall in love with someone (or even something such as medicine for me). Didn’t it seem to take all of your attention? And I mean all of it. Day and night you couldn’t think of anything else. You just wanted to know all there was to know about that person or the thing. That would have been one test you definitely could have gotten a 100 on!

If the relationship continued, your attention remained on that person (it’s also called focus). And with that attention came devotion.

Look at musicians. They focus their entire attention on their instrument or voice or the music. Same with athletes.

Same with anything that sparks an interest in your soul. You’re captivated…and devoted.

Next time you see to be paying a lot of attention to something, ask yourself “am I becoming devoted?” And if so, great (well, great as long as it’s morally ok).

And don’t let anyone say things like “you’re obsessed” because you probably are obsessed but in a good way whereas they are most likely using it as a put down.

Don’t ever let anyone criticize you for being devoted. Just tell them to pay more attention and then they’ll be happier and can mind their own business.

Daily Gratitude: “Character is higher than intellect.”

This is so important. If you develop nothing else in your life, work on your character.

All you have to do is look at the list of names in the Epstein files and you’ll see all the intellect you could ever want. But how much character is in there?

Look at people with developmental disabilities. They are usually the happiest and if they can work, they generally surpass most of the other employees. That is character and I’d rather have them working for or with me than some smart bozo who feels he or she is above others either because of their IQ or their success. But they would step on anyone who gets in their way.

There is such a thing as karma which is why I stay away from people like that… in case of a karma spillover.

Figure out your core values and let them guide everything and I mean everything you do in your life. Hard work is part of character and that can get you further along than most other things.