Trafford Publishing: Happy 4 Life: Here's How to Do It

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Happy 4 Life: Here's How to Do It

by Bob Nozik, M.D.

207 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0446; ISBN 1-4120-0083-1; US$20.50, C$23.50, EUR17.00, £12.00

HAPPY 4 LIFE: Here's How to Do It shows you how to turn your life into a work of art, a happy work of art. You will learn all the secrets for having the never-ending happiness you've always wanted but never imagined you could have, plus you'll have lots of fun learning how.

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about the book about the author sample excerpts catalogue info

About the Book

What you will find in HAPPY 4 LIFE, are the instructoins for living a special kind of happiness that the author calls ideal happiness. This is not a book about happiness; this is a book that shows you how to get the happiness you've always wanted.
Part I of HAPPY 4 LIFE reviews the research on happiness and reveals that there are two very different kinds of happiness: ordinary and ideal.
In Part II, you'll discover that there are 12 simple principles that will lead you to happiness. They are explained and illustrated by means of real-life stories and excerises will help you master each of them.
The next section, Detours Along the Happiness Highway, points out impediments that could slow your progress to happiness as well as showing you ways for getting past them.
Finally, in Part IV, you will learn some very powerful ways for making personal change.

About the Author

Bob Nozik, MD, is Professor Emeritus at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. He has been studying happiness ever since developing his own more than 15 years ago and is now teaching others how to find theirs through his speaking, writing, and happiness coaching. He lives with his family in Northern California.

Sample Excerpts

Contents

INTRODUCTION
PART I: OVERVIEW OF HAPPINESS
Chapter 1: Are You Smiley-Happy or Glumbunny-Happy?
Chapter 2: How Would You Like to Have Your Own Happiness Factory?
PART II: 12 KEYS FOR UNLOCKING THE DOOR TO IDEAL HAPPINESS
Chapter 3: Wake-up and Smell the Flowers
Happiness Key #1: Conscious Awareness
Chapter 4: Love and Kisses to Me
Happiness Key #2: Self-Like/Self-Love
Chapter 5: You Can Do It, I Know You Can
Happiness Key #3: Self-Esteem
Chapter 6: Count Your Blessings and Remember to Say Thank-You
Happiness Key #4: Appreciation/Gratitude
Chapter 7: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Happiness Key #5: Acceptance
Chapter 8: Freedom's Just Another Word for Growing Up
Happiness Key #6: Responsible Adulthood
Chapter 9: Just Do It My Way
Happiness Key #7: Non-Judgement
Chapter 10: Don't Worry, Be Happy
Happiness Key #8: Pollyanna's Game
Chapter 11: It's Not My Fault; I Can Explain!
Happiness Key #9: Handling Mistakes
Chapter 12: I Just Gotta Be Me
Happiness Key #10: Individuality
Chapter 13: Who Says Nobody's Perfect?
Happiness Key #11: Perfection
Chapter 14: It's Now Or Never
Happiness Key #12: Present-Moment Living
PART III: DETOURS ALONG THE HAPPINESS HIGHWAY
Chapter 15: The Happy Idiot
Chapter 16: Fear and Loathing
Chapter 17: Unhappy Genius
PART IV: HOW TO CHANGE
Chapter 18: How Can I Change My Life When I Can't Even Stop Biting My Fingernails?
ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS
RECOMMENDED READING
APPENDIX

INTRODUCTION

"Hi, Bob, how are you?"

Sounds pretty innocent doesn't it? But this simple greeting changed my life and might change yours as well.
The year is 1987; the place is the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco where I worked as Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology. Passing a colleague on the way to the Eye Clinic one morning, I answered his mundane greeting with a cheery, "Great!" Immediately, his melancholy face twisted into a sneer as he grumbled, "Oh, you're always great!" And, with a dismissive wave of his hand, he fled down the hall.
"Hm," I surmised, "8:00 A.M. and he's already having a bad day."
But this same scene was repeated twice more, almost word for word, sneer for sneer, dismissive hand-wave for dismissive hand-wave. By paring my cheery "Great" to "Okay," I managed to get through the rest of the day without further incident.
At home that evening, I reviewed those encounters with my three grumpy colleagues. They had all found my lively "Great!" annoying. Apparently, being too happy, especially at work and early in the morning, puts people off!
Me, too happy? That's a good one! In the past, no one would have graded my happiness higher than a C-. Still, I was becoming happier. In fact, looking back, I realized that my happiness had been moving steadily upward over the past three years. And this new happiness was qualitatively different as well. It didn't come and go like the happiness I was used to; it was deeper, more solid and reliable than before.
"How strange," I thought, "that it took those three guys at the hospital to make me see how happy I've become."
What's more, subconsciously I knew that displaying too much joy around others is risky. Clearly, I had crossed the line and been too cheerful that morning at the hospital.
How could I have been blind to the major upturn in my own happiness for so long? Could it have developed so slowly that I hadn't noticed? Maybe I thought I was just having a run of good luck. Still, the events taking place during this time of my life had not been unusually good.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame
Mentally, I began to evaluate the happiness of my close friends, family, and coworkers, and quickly concluded that I was now happier than every one of them. "I can't be the only person this happy," I considered, "there must be others. Wouldn't it be great if I could find other people who, instead of being put off by happiness, would celebrate it?"
But how could I find them? Finally, I decided to place an ad in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, a free weekly paper that features a large personals section. Here's the ad I placed:

ARE YOU HAPPY?

Do you find yourself keeping quiet about expressing how wonderful the world is to your friends because they are repulsed by your joy and happiness? We happy people are a group society finds difficult to accept. We need to form a support group for joyful, happy people. Contact Bob Nozik at: (phone #)

When the ad appeared I received a few calls including one from a woman who asked several pointed questions. "Are you promoting some new religion with this ad, one that promises new converts joy and happiness?" "No," I replied, "I'm Jewish, but secular. I've never been very religious. Besides," I pointed out, "Judaism isn't exactly a new religion."
Satisfied with that answer, she continued: "Are you trying to attract women to date with this ad? Is that what you're really after?"
Although twice married and divorced, I was then already in relationship with the wonderful woman who has been my life partner for more than 20 years. I assured the caller that my ad wasn't a roman-tic come-on.
She then went on to explain that she was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, the main morning daily newspaper in the City. She liked to scan Guardian ads for material she could turn into human interest stories for the Chronicle. She found my ad to be interesting, and we set a time for an interview.
Three days later she, along with a photographer, arrived at my front door. She spent about an hour asking me all about my happiness and left after taking several photos.
One week later, I was reading the Chronicle and having breakfast at my favorite coffee house. When I got to the "People" section, I was both amazed and amused to find a huge picture of myself sitting in my house looking happy, and a long article about this strangely happy fellow, me.
Now, the phone began to ring, and ring, and ring. My poor, little discount-store answering machine pleaded for early retirement.
One of the calls was from the Associated Press. They insisted on doing another interview and more photos. That story circled the globe. In the ensuing blaze of publicity I got my Andy Warhol's "15 minutes of fame." The pursuit of happiness, it seems, is universal, but actually being happy is newsworthy!

Happy People, Inc. (HaPI)
I was stunned! If it's true that deep, abiding happiness is rare, how did I, of all people, get it? After all, I'd been unhappy most of my life.
But things were moving too fast to try and answer that one. Riding the wave of publicity, I launched HaPI, Happy People, Inc., a nonprofit organization for happy people. HaPI grew to over one hundred local San Francisco Bay Area members, plus a similar number of national and international associate members. We had a newsletter and threw parties. We also held biweekly seminars where the members discussed how they developed and nurtured their happiness.
As I learned more and more about the members of HaPI, I was surprised to discover that almost 60 per cent were not especially happy. They had joined hoping to learn the secrets for becoming happy.
HaPI lasted just one year. The demands of a busy medical practice plus my research and teaching commitments were too great for me to give HaPI the attention it needed. Nevertheless, I had found my calling. I now knew that once my medical work was over, I would dedicate myself to studying happiness and teaching others how to find it.
Slowly, as I began winding down my medical career, I put more and more time and energy into learning everything I could about happiness.
This book is the product of everything I've absorbed about happiness from self-inquiry, didactic study, as well as what I learned from those members of HaPI who were truly happy.
There are many fine books available which offer a scientific perspective about happiness; however most fail to show their readers how to actually get it. Here you will learn how to be happy. I have but one caution: persons suffering from clinical depression or other serious psychological or psychiatric problems may not benefit from what is recommended here. This book is not an alternative to medication or therapy for mental disorders.

Catalogue Information