how to get happy

 

State of Mind

Happiness is ephemeral, subject to the vagaries of everything from the weather to the size of your bank account.

We're not suggesting that you can reach a permanent state called "happiness" and remain there. But there are many ways to swerve off the path of anxiety, anger, frustration, and sadness into a state of happiness once or even several times throughout the day. Here are 20 ideas to get you started. Choose the ones that work for you. If tuning out the news or making lists will serve only to stress you further, try another approach.

1. Practice mindfulness. Be in the moment. Instead of worrying about your checkup tomorrow while you have dinner with your family, focus on the here and now -- the food, the company, the conversation.

2. Laugh out loud. Just anticipating a happy, funny event can raise levels of endorphins and other pleasure-inducing hormones and lower production of stress hormones. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, tested 16 men who all agreed they thought a certain videotape was funny. Half were told three days in advance they would watch it. They started experiencing biological changes right away. When they actually watched the video, their levels of stress hormones dropped significantly, while their endorphin levels rose 27 percent and their growth hormone levels (indicating benefit to the immune system) rose 87 percent.

3. Go to sleep. We have become a nation of sleep-deprived citizens. Taking a daily nap or getting into bed at 8 p.m. one night with a good book -- and turning the light out an hour later -- can do more for your mood and outlook on life than any number of bubble baths or massages.

4. Hum along. Music soothes more than the savage beast. Studies find music activates parts of the brain that produce happiness -- the same parts activated by food or sex. It's also relaxing. In one study older adults who listened to their choice of music during outpatient eye surgery had significantly lower heart rates, blood pressure, and cardiac workload (that is, their heart didn't have to work as hard) as those who had silent surgery.

5. Declutter. It's nearly impossible to meditate, breathe deeply, or simply relax when every surface is covered with papers and bills and magazines, your cabinets bulge, and you haven't balanced your checkbook in six months. Plus, the repetitive nature of certain cleaning tasks -- such as sweeping, wiping, and scrubbing -- can be meditative in and of itself if you focus on what you're doing.

 

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baby

 

 

i was trying to put my niece to bed when i bumped on these pictures of sleeping babies.

in such a sudden i can feel my heart aches and longing for something that i not yet to have.

 

a baby or two.

 

after almost three years of marriage, i still have to struggle for becoming a mother of my own child/s.

i've been through things, and thank God i'm alive.

now, that i feel this feeling again. i know how bad i need this little creature, a mini me or mini him to hold and be held by on my very hands. to hug, to kiss, to love, and to care.

how i really am longing for the sense of his/her body, when i can move my fingers run through his/her hair.

i know God has the plan, and everything happens for a reason.

i'll be waiting for the moment to come.

Amin.

 

 

i'm coming back home

mari kembali bicara tentang rumah. bagiku, sekolah tempatku mengajar sekarang adalah rumahku. entah rumah yang keberapa, tapi yang jelas aku sangat nyaman berada di dalamnya, terlepas dari berbagai konflik dan masalah yang timbul.

aku punya beberapa kamar (baca: kelas) di rumah (baca: sekolah) yang menjadi daerah kekuasaan ku, yang menjadi tanggung jawabku. lengkap dengan semua perabot (baca: siswa) yang ada di dalamnya.

dua bulan terakhir, aku terpaksa merelakan kamar-kamar itu untuk disewa dan dihuni oleh pendatang baru. dan aku memposisikan diriku sebagai landlord :)

sebuah posisi yang cukup menyenangkan sebenarnya. 

awalnya ada rasa khawatir yang menyergap, aku tak bisa merelakan begitu saja orang asing untuk masuk dan menguasai kamar-kamar ku. perasaan yang wajar jika aku takut mereka akan menggores beberapa perabot, atau menggunakan fasilitas tanpa semestinya.

 karena itu, aku terus mengawasi apa yang dilakukan oleh para penghuni baru itu dengan kamar-kamar ku. aku melihat mereka tidur di atas dipan dengan sangat hati-hati, seolah takut menimbulkan bunyi berdecit, padahal dipan itu masih baru. aku melihat mereka membersihkan kaca jendela kamar setiap pagi. terkadang aku juga melihat mereka membanting pintu karena kesal. 

beberapa kali, aku juga melihat mereka terisak di sudut kamar karena kebingungan dengan banyaknya pekerjaan yang harus dilakukan. saat-saat seperti itu, aku akan masuk ke dalam kamar dan membantu mereka menyelesaikan pekerjaan secara bertahap. 

hari-hari pertama, para pendatang itu terlihat tidak nyaman berada di kamar-kamar ku. mereka lebih menikmati berjalan-jalan di sekitar rumah dan bercengkrama dengan pendatang-pendatang yang lain. 

seiring berlalunya waktu, mereka mulai terbiasa dengan keadaan kamar-kamar ku, mereka mulai terampil menggunakan semua fasilitas, merawat dan menggunakan perabot sebagaimana mestinya. mereka bahkan mulai menghabiskan lebih banyak waktu untuk merawat perabotan yang ada di dalam kamar. 

aku pun sudah bisa tenang menyerahkan kamarku sepenuhnya kepada para pendatang itu. meski sesekali aku tetap memantau perkembangannya.

kini, masa sewa kamar-kamar itu segera habis. dan aku mulai bersiap untuk kembali menguasai seluruh kamar itu sendirian. merawat semua perabotnya sendirian, seperti sebelum para pendatang itu menghuni kamar.

rasa khawatir kini datang, tapi dalam bentuk yang berbeda.

mungkinkah perabotan di kamar-kamar ku telah terbiasa dengan sentuhan para pendatang itu dan merasa asing dengan hadirku lagi sepenuhya?

ah...semoga saja tidak. perabotan kamar-kamar ku adalah pilihan, mereka pasti bisa beradaptasi dengan semua orang yang menghuni kamar.

aku akan kembali memenuhi hari-hariku di rumah dengan membereskan semua kamar milikku sendirian, mengepel lantainya, mengelap kaca jendelanya, merapikan meja dan dipan, serta menata baju-baju dalam lemari dengan baik. 

bagaimana dengan para pendatang yang sekarang sudah menjadi temanku itu?

aku berharap mereka belajar banyak tentang cara mengurus rumah dan kamar serta perabotnya.

aku yakin jika suatu saat mereka menemukan rumah dan dipercaya untuk menghuni beberapa kamar di dalamnya, mereka sudah sangat siap dan akan menjadi penghuni yang baik.

para penghuni yang menyebarkan kasih, yang bermanfaat, dan aman bagi rumah dan kamar-kamar berikut perabotan di dalamnya.

bismillah.....

Ode to a Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
    My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
    One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
    But being too happy in thine happiness, -
        That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
                In some melodious plot
    Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
        Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
    Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
    Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
    Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
        With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
                And purple-stained mouth;
    That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
        And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
    What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
    Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
    Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
        Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
                And leaden-eyed despairs,
    Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
        Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
    Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
    Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
    And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
        Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
                But here there is no light,
    Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
        Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
    Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
    Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
    White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
        Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
                And mid-May's eldest child,
    The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
        The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
    I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
    To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
    To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
        While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
                In such an ecstasy!
    Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -
        To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
    No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
    In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
    Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
        She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
                The same that oft-times hath
    Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
        Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
    To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
    As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
    Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
        Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
                In the next valley-glades:
    Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
        Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?

source: http://englishhistory.net/keats/poetry/odetoanightingale.html