The pursuit of happiness is one of the primary goals of all humans. This, along with life and liberty, was declared as an essential right in the US declaration of independence. Every religion and philosophy has offered its pathway to happiness. Happiness is a state of mind and there are many paths to it. There are common prerequisites to sustained happiness as well as common causes of unhappiness. These usually transcend all classifications of gender, age or race. There are other factors which are very individual specific.

What is Happiness

Happiness is a state of the mind. The dictionary definition is ‘feelings of joy and pleasure mingled together”. A feeling of happiness is more than just an experience of joy or pleasure. It is a state of mind where the individual feels that “life is good”.

Becoming Happier

Happiness is a state of mind which can be induced by many means – some result in short term happiness while others result in long lasting happiness. One way of inducing long lasting happiness and bliss is meditation. For a busy person, a more practical way to becoming happier is to make steady progress towards meaningful goals. Even though this seems simple, it really is a very powerful technique to attain a state of long lasting happiness. The goals may vary from individual to individual, but for everyone happiness comes from merely making steady progress towards goals that are meaningful to them. The key is that goals have to be meaningful to you. Progress towards goals set by some one else will not bring happiness (unless you too desire the same goals).

There should be a balance in your goals to ensure that the prerequisites of happiness are fulfilled. These prerequisites include good health, sufficient income to meet basic needs, affection, some productive work or activity, defined and achievable goals and good attitude. All the money in the world will not make you happy if you ignore your health or have bad relationships. Also you must try to remove the causes of unhappiness from your life. These causes are – lack of any of the prerequisites for happiness, failure to achieve goals, envy, relationship problems, loneliness and fear of the opinion of others.

Studies have shown that a number of factors contribute to sustained happiness. Some of these are

•             Good self esteem

•             Feeling of control over one’s life

•             Supportive and warm relationships (marriage/friendship )

•             Satisfying work

•             Enjoyable leisure activities

•             Good attitude

•             Good Health

•             Moderation in everything

•             Impersonal interests

Thus a very effective process of becoming happier is to set goals for improvement in each one of these areas, start working towards these goals and then periodically reviewing the progress towards the goals.

So the first step is to set goals for yourself in the major aspects of your life. These goals have to be meaningful to you and they have to be specific and time bound. If the goals are not meaningful to you, you will derive little happiness from achieving them. Also if they are not specific and time bound, you will not be able to measure your progress towards these goals and thus will not experience the increased happiness which comes from making steady progress towards your goals. Goals need to be set for the major aspects of your life which contribute to happiness – Health, Financial, Relationships, Career, Attitude, Self Actualization etc.

Then you must assess where you currently are in relation to your goals. Say if your financial goal is to have savings of twenty thousand dollars in five years, you need to assess your net worth today and also your current income and expenses to know how much you are currently saving.

Next you must set up a time bound action plan to achieve your goals. For your financial goals this means determining the extra amount you need to save each month, either by earning more or spending less or both. Then you need to have a plan for earning more and for reducing your expenses. This plan needs to be specific with amounts and timing e.g. you will reduce expenses by $50 a month by eating out less often and you will increase income by $300 a month by taking on a part time job.

Then start implementing your plan and monitor the progress. As you see yourself meeting your periodic targets, you will find your happiness increasing. Many of us have experienced the happiness which comes from steadily losing one pound per week in a weight loss program. Imagine having the same effect in all aspects of your life. The important thing in this is to make steady progress towards your goals. Happiness will grow as you see yourself making progress. Once you achieve your initial goals, you need to set new goals – maybe in different areas of your life e.g. if you have achieved your fitness and financial goals, aim for making a difference to the world around you. (Making a difference is a source of deep and long lasting happiness). Being without a goal after achieving your earlier ones will reduce your happiness. Say you suddenly inherit some money and achieve your financial goals, you will be happy for some time, but the effects will soon wear off as your mind adjusts to the new level of affluence. To sustain happiness you will have to set new goals for yourself, maybe in different areas of your life.

In these times, it makes sense to make money by saving money. One solid way to do that is to muster up your own brown bag lunch ideas. For those on a weight loss program, brown bagging it can also provide more control over calories, salt content, sugar, and white flour. Not to mention displacing the high cost of pre-packaged diet foods like protein shakes, meal bars, and microwaveable entrees.

Most fast food establishments do offer some diet choices, but these, too, are as expensive as any other meal there. If you spend the average $7.50 for a basic lunch (twice that in some cities) and you do it five days a week, 50 weeks of the year (here it comes…) that’s $1,840.00. That’s a lot of dough just to be chic with the office crowd. Here are some healthy and delicious brown bag lunch ideas that won’t empty your wallet or pad your hips.

1. Plan and prepare the core elements of your lunch the night before. Traditionally, a sack lunch includes a sandwich, a piece of fruit, something crunchy, and something sweet. Not rocket science, but worthy of careful consideration of each component if you’re calculating both cost and calories.

2. Add a healthy afternoon snack while you’re at it. Why give your $1.25 to the snack machine and get poor calories back in the bargain?

3. Select a drink. Although mostly relegated to the kiddie crowd, juice boxes and fruity pouch drinks do fit the bill. They tolerate being unrefrigerated and travel well. To lower cost and calories the most, however, consider taking a tea kit to the office.

4. When lunchtime comes, don’t eat at your desk if you don’t need to. Make the time your own by changing the scenery along with your posture. Sit outside with a friend. Listen to music in your car. Share your sweet with a brown bag confederate.

5. Take all the money you saved with these brown bag lunch ideas and go buy a new wardrobe. You may need one after cutting a year’s worth of lunch-fat from your waist!

According to the surveys and studies, it has been concluded that quality of life is about what an individual exactly wants and expects from life. We all have some thoughts and expectations of how our life should be and when those expectations do not fulfill then we get frustrated and stop believing on ourselves.

We also start believing that luxuries of life and money are the only sources that can make their life better and happier. The true fact is that these things may improve the standard of living, but it can never improve the quality of life. The true ingredients of quality of life are happiness and satisfaction.  The satisfaction of life can only be achieved by acquiring the inner happiness, and money can never buy these things. Such satisfaction is only be achieved by doing the pleasant acts, such as, spending time with beloved ones, doing some random act of kindness, etc. These acts will help you to achieve the inner happiness and ultimately the satisfaction.

Happiness can also be persuaded by doing the things that you really like. Finding a passion of your soul is the best thing for those who seek a true happiness. If you will do the work you are passionate about then you truly will achieve the desired result and success. Most of the people feel bored and irritated with the work they do, because they don’t have a passion for their work. So it is important to find a passion in the work to enjoy the work.

A person plays a professional and personal role in their life an often mix up both and end up with poor quality of professional as well as personal life. So it is important to concentrate on both part of life and maintain the equal balance between both of them.

It is quite often that people try to save money but fails because they don’t take steps wisely. For saving money one should evaluate what are the total household income and the expenses. If you are able to maintain the balance between total income and expenses, then you definitely can save money. For maintaining proper balance you need to find out what expenses are not necessary and where you can save money.

Differentiate between necessary expenses and un-necessary expenses.

Food, clothes, shelter, electric bill, and traveling expenses are included in necessary expenses. As we all know without all above things it is a bit impossible to live a life. So the wisest thing a person can do is to manage these expenses. You can buy food items in bulk, and store them in the refrigerator or deep freezer. Also, before buying food items make a list of necessary groceries, vegetables and fruits. This list will help you to pick the needful things. We can do the same things when going for shopping of clothes. Buying in bulk will help you in many ways, like you will save money when buying in bulk, and also you are saving money on the daily short trip you make to the groceries’ shops. Otherwise you will randomly buy some unnecessary things that may harm your balance of income and expense.

Next comes, the electric bills. You can also save the expenses on both by just simple steps. At first, switch off the lights, fans or ACs when not in use. Use the sunlight to light your room, it will reduce the use of bulb or tube light at the daytime.  You can also replace the bulbs and tube lights with the energy efficient bulbs and tube lights. This will definitely reduce your electric bill too.  Proper maintenance and correct use of all the electric appliances will also help you to save money.

Traveling or going to the office or at a friend place on your car sounds comfortable, but the fuel may take a bite on your wallet. So the wisest thing is to use the public transports such as, buses, trams, metro trains, etc. this could be less expensive than the price you pay for the fuel.

All these simple and wise steps will help any individual to save a good amount of money in a month. Also, a person needs to stick to these steps, because without proper determination it will be hard for any person to save even a single penny.

In spite the news of recovery of economy, we still have to walk a long path in order to attain the same economic condition. Many people those had planned their tomorrow wisely also got tumbled due to the situations that arise in past years. In such a situation the question arises, am I spending a lot of money? Should I cut something from my budget? Should I start looking for an alternate way to earn the money?

In such uncertain time, the first thing what we all should do is to distinguish between our wants and needs, and spending smart. Take a good look at your home budget, you will definitely find many things, which are required less, but you have added them in bulk. Why to buy more when you can manage in less. You can save lots of money if you will distinguish the wants and needs very precisely. Needs are the simple things that are the basic need of a person to survive, such as shelter, food clothes and transportation. Wants can be defined as the things that enhance our lifestyle such as, a car. If you will calculate the expenses of fuel and maintenance of a car then you can easily evaluate that traveling on the bus, trams and metro train is much cheaper than the car. So, why to use a car when there are other cheaper ways of transportation.

Now that you have a clear picture of needs and wants, the next thing is to spend smartly. Usually we run daily to the shops for groceries or food items, dish soap, shampoo, etc., but if we will buy non-perishable groceries and other required things in advance and in bulk then we can save money on bulk purchasing. In bulk purchasing, there is a possibility of getting discounts, and also buying in bulk can save your money which you spend while traveling to and fro for the shopping.  You can also replace the tube lights and bulbs with the energy efficient bulbs that can help you to save money on the electric bill.

Every small and wise step can help you to save a big amount of money. You certainly can cut your expenses in much miscellaneous spending which you do in coffee shop, snacks, etc. Without a proper plan and wise decisions no one can have a better future.

To enhance the living style you don’t have to enslave yourself to the companies. If you are an internet user then you probably have heard about the people earning thousands of dollars from the web. You must also have heard that it is quite possible from the comfort from your home.

Yes, the revolution in technologies has made it possible to earn money from your home. The internet has facilitated us to get the money from our passions. There are many ways by which you can earn handsome money for your future. The things required to start earning from home is internet skills and determination.

You can earn from many programs, and eventually without any investment too. One of the most popular ways to earn money is affiliate marketing, and you don’t have to pay a penny for this. Affiliate marketing in simple words means you get associated with the company and get to authorize to promote their products and services. In affiliate marketing, you get commissions on the number of sales you generate for the company. Today on internet thousands of products are available online, you can choose from your favorite product to promote and sell. There are many best paid affiliate programs available, such as, commission junction and click bank. All you have to do is signup with the site and choose the favorite product and start promoting and generating sells for those products.

If you have a flair for writing and your skills are best at it, then also you can earn a lot of money either by monetizing your blog. The basic of earning from your blog and website is pay per click. You will have to sign up in an affiliate network; the most popular is Google Adsense program and Amazon. Google Adsense program or other affiliate program will let you to place their advertisements on your blog, and every click of your blog visitor will make money for you.

If the above categories doesn’t suit your taste then there is another option for everyone, and that is working as a freelancer. There are many sites that can help you to get the job of your skills, you can be a freelance, writer or, data entry worker or, coder, etc. this is just an example. Sites like Freelancer.com, Elance, Scriptlance, etc. gives you the opportunity to pick a job of your choice. The only thing required is your expert skills, and you can earn from the comfort of your home.

Many people are learning and earning through the online home based jobs, become one of them. You too can earn much more than you are earning now. All you need is determination and hard work to earn more and more money from a computer with the internet at home.