The secret to finding happiness is to first understand what happiness is. It is not the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It is more to do with your state of mind, rather than your situation. Your ability to focus on the positive, no matter how small, in spite of the negative. Remember, you can only think one thought at a time.

The happiest people in the world surround themselves with family and friends, don’t care about keeping up with the Joneses next door and lose themselves in daily activities. This is the truth of Vanuatu, with a low ecological footprint, voted the Happiest Country on Earth, in 2006. A South Pacific tropical island nation where the GNP was rated 207, out of the 233 countries around the world. Money, or lack of, is not the key to happiness. Neither can happiness be bought.

Martin. E.P. Seligman, Pennsylvania psychologist says, “The happiest people judge themselves by their own yardsticks, never against what others do, or have.”

Others claim the happiest people are the ones who forgive easily. Psychologists now say gratitude has a lot to do with life satisfaction and a feeling of well being.

Western society commonly perceives happiness as the outcome of what you achieve and what you acquire. These people live by the ‘If only…’ syndrome. Most people agree that you can have everything in the world and still be miserable. Or you can have relatively little and feel unbounded joy.

Another perspective of happiness was quoted by a young man in danger of losing his eyesight. “An eyeball is worth at least five million dollars. You have two of them? You’re rich. If you really appreciate your eyesight, then the other miseries are nothing. Yet if you take it all for granted, then nothing in life will ever truly give you joy.”
The experts agree it is possible to intellectually understand how to attain happiness, yet not put it into practice, for happiness is an attitude of choice.

It is a fact that some people prefer to be comfortable and unhappy, rather than endure the discomfort of changing their habits in the search of true happiness.

For some people the key to happiness is based on being considerate to the people around them, as we unconsciously mimic those around us. Try this simple experiment. Walk into a roomful of people with a smile on your face. Half an hour later walk into the same room with a frown on your face.  Watch the instant reaction of those around you.

It is now widely accepted in the scientific community that happiness is becoming more scientific and a field of vital exploration. Though one researcher states: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness,” American social philosopher, Eric Hoffer.

Perhaps happiness in January 2009, is not having lost a fortune on the stock market in 2008.
Here are a few quick tips that may assist you in your quest for happiness:

• Realize bad times are an inevitable part of the life cycle
• Rationalize and adjust to the low times as quickly as possible
• Visualize current and future events in isolation
• Trust in your own resilience – you can always go a lot further than you think you can
• Always remember tomorrow is new day. A chance for a new beginning.

A simple formula to happiness is to sit down with your spouse, partner, or roommate every evening and discuss one pleasure that each of you had during the day. If you are a family, incorporate this into your family routine so that your children also learn to appreciate their daily pleasures.

Life is full of those once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunities, that can make or break you. Success it not happiness, but failure to try, leads to a life full of regrets.

Here’s wishing you all the happiness you can find in 2009.

Take a few minutes to browse Win A Resort, where someone is going to find a special kind of happiness in owning a tropical island property.

New Year is the time of a new beginning, that once a year blue moon opportunity to make a real change. A time when many people, make New Year resolutions…but forget them by January 15th.

Here are 9 ways to ensure your success this year and make 2009 your personal year of success, in spite of the doom and gloom around you.

1.    Take a long hard look at what it is you would like to change. Keep it simple and achieve one goal before you attempt another. The biggest key to this is to be brutally honest with yourself.
2.    Take another long hard look at yourself and assess if the benefit of what you would like to change is really worthwhile.
3.    You need to have a really good motivating reason to want to make the change. Without that you will never succeed.
4.    Write down some major and minor goals. Make sure your goals are realistic and achievable.
5.    Make a large sign for yourself, of what you would like to achieve and place it where only you can see it, e.g. “I must learn to be more of a negotiator instead of a confrontationist. (This means having more patience with those around me on a day to day basis.) Because we unconsciously influence those we are in close contact with, I must choose to influence them with my patience, instead of confrontation. This in turn will impact my life in a major way and lead to a greater success in 2009.”
6.    Place your sign where it is private, e.g. your drawer where you keep your underwear.  You alone can keep a check on your progress.
7.    Put some real effort into the sign so you will daily remind yourself how important this is to you. Or write it on a distinctive piece of paper, so it will stand out in its hiding place.
8.    Remember it takes three weeks to make or break a habit, so put a date on your sign. Make yourself a graph of 21 days. At a set time each day pause for a few minutes to note down your progress. Adjust your goals if you need to as you go along.
9.    Your reward will be in the end results. However, there is No Gain Without Pain, that is why it has to be a really worthwhile goal.

My personal Goal: 2009 is not going to be an easy year for anyone. Only those who have learned to bend with the winds of change will succeed in the coming year. Everyone needs space to adapt, be it in business or personal relationships. I need to give others more time to adjust to my ideas, or vice versa. You can gain the whole world, but end up the loneliest person in it.

Good luck in your New Year.  Make 2009 work for you. No matter what the future holds, someone will succeed in it. They always have. Make sure that someone is you.

If you see a fat man who’s jolly and cute,
Wearing a beard and a red flannel suit,
And if he is chuckling and laughing away,
While flying around in a miniature sleigh,
With eight tiny reindeer to pull him along,
Then let’s face it Your Eggnog is TOO STRONG!

Have a great Christmas and holiday period and lets keep smiling and pray that 2009 will be a year of better news than 2008.

I know we have some exciting news coming up in the New Year, with great once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunities.  Keep tuned to Win A Resort

It’s official. Laughter is extremely contagious and can  elevate the entire mood of a group of people, with more being achieved through laughter, than any other method. Stress levels are lowered and social interaction and connectivity improved. Laughter is also one of the few commodities left in a world that is in financial crisis, that is free.

Laughter plays a very important role in our society and never more so than when the world is crashing down around our ears. Laughter takes the focus off more negative emotions such as anger, guilt and stress. It is therefore, important that as human beings we learn to embrace both tears and laughter.

Logic is boring, while it is the illogical situations that causes us to laugh. Laughter can make the difference between choosing to look at a situation as a threat, or a challenge and completely alter our perspective.Often it is laughter that can point us to once in a lifetime blue moon opportunities that can completely change our life. into advantages. After all, many a catastrophic circumstance has been turned into gales of laughter as an incident is repeated as entertainment, at a later date, to friends and relatives. It is truly a case of ‘look back and laugh’. It is when we learn to laugh at ourselves that a disadvantage can often be turned into an advantage.

Have you ever noticed how infectious a happy person is? In a recent study it was found that knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself.

“Did you know that we often mimic a person we are talking to and mirror their behavior?”says Sophie Scott, a researcher of University College London. Maybe some us should practice talking in front of a mirror, to see what kind of an effect we are projecting and lighten up our general presentation.

“Your emotional state depends not just on actions and choices that you make, but also on actions and choices of other people, many of which you don’t even know,” said Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and medical sociologist at Harvard.

It is well recognized that laughter has many healing properties and finding laughter in daily life profoundly enhances healing and the quality of life.  Laughter can help reduce symptoms of allergies, abdominal pain and digestive problems, as well as helping you manage anger and fear. A good belly laugh exercises the diaphragm, contracts the abs and even works out the shoulders, leaving muscles more relaxed afterward. It even provides a good workout for the heart and a good ten minute laugh is considered better than a 20 minute jog.Perhaps the old saying should be changed to: ‘a laugh a day keeps the doctor away.’

Laughter is something you can catch without even asking for it, or even wanting it. Try to stay serious while everyone around you is cracking up with laughter. As a stress reliever laughter is high on the list along with sex, music therapy, prayer and meditation, and progressive muscle relaxation. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.

Here are some people’s private views on laughter.

Diane Bodein Walters “There is a fine line between laughter and tears I think one can flick into the other. I’m sure that we’ve all experienced that. There’s a quote of Oscar Wilde “Where there’s sorrow there’s holy ground” so we have to be prepared for people to want to cry rather than laugh and for me they come from the same place. They come from a deep place within the heart .”

Bill Beagley, Anglican Priest “I think humour by its nature asks you to look beyond the logical realities. I mean a joke is funny because you suddenly realise it’s impossible.”

Laibl Wolf, Rabbi and educational psychologist “Laughter is perhaps one of the most mystical expressions of a human being. We say laughter takes place when the soul tricks the mind, bypasses it, short circuits the process. True laughter that flows from the intuitive self, is the most beautiful expression of joy and purpose of creation.”

Lama Choedak “Laughter in many ways brings us closer to the basic values of existence. That is to experience happiness.”

Narr “The idea of subverting reality through humour met its ultimate challenge in the horror that was the Holocaust. For Auchwitz survivor Abraham Ckyiert humour was not only a way of enduring the moment but it ultimately became the means of his survival.”

Jenny Thompson Richards (working in a terminally ill hospice) “I think here people do really value laughter because of this very special situation where people are knowing that their life is limited.  The kind of humour that we are interested in is the humour that actually allows people to embrace the deep things and to be connected together with each other. It is still the best barrier breaker in town.”

Dr Fry, a psychiatrist at Stanford Medical School, “Children laugh an average of 300 times per day.” However children cry at least as often as they laugh, if not more. To many people there is no closer link to the innocence of childhood than that evoked by the vision of a clown”

It is definitely time to concentrate on having more fun in your life.

If you would like to know more about the author and a genuine Blue moon Opportunity take a few minutes to check out Win A Resort.

For any business to be a success, particularly on the Internet, you have to put in the long hours.
The problem is that most people overestimate the short term effect of their website and underestimate the long term effect. Therefore they get discouraged and give up just about the time things were ready to get up and run.

The key is, never give up, even when you begin to feel like this picture. Success only goes to the stayers.
Have a great Christmas and New Year and come back in January with lots of wonderful new ideas.

We are going to launch a wonderful new Blue Moon Opportunity product in the New Year. Keep an eye on this space.

To take a look at a genuine Blue Moon Opportunity take a few minutes out to check out Win A Resort

Olive Riley, from Broken Hill, Australia, the world’s oldest blogger died in July, at a massive 108 years old. Too weak to get up from her bed, she was still able to tap the keyboard of her computer. Olive said “It doesn’t take much exertion to be a blobber”.

The Life of Riley had more than a million hits since its launch last year. Olive was the only resident in the retirement home with a website and a ‘blob’. “Olive was introduced to blogging by and an older friend who had taken up blogging”, says Mike Rubbo, filmmaker of a documentary on the life and times of Olive Riley.

Olive’s fans came from all over the world. Unfortunately Olive did not have the strength to speak on a US talk show, when invited to do so.

Perhaps Olive calling her blog a blob was a lovely accident we can all learn from. Unlike Olive, maybe we all take Google rating and the number of hits we get, and ourselves, all too seriously.

Olive seemed to have found the magic key of doing her thinking just before she dropped off to sleep. Experts (whoever they may claim to be), say our brain works better and clearer at night than during the day. So perhaps like Olive, we could be more successful if we ‘blobbed’ at night. Or at least got our ideas for blobbing, in the night hours (which a lot of us do).

The other point we can all take on board from Olive is that if you are blogging now, how many blogs can you put out by the time you are 108? Olive managed to put out 70 entries on her life experiences in just on eighteen months. Experiences that cover a world-wide depression and two World Wars, being a station cook in outback Queensland and a barmaid in Sydney.

Now you are a lot younger and much more energetic, so say you write 5 blogs a week, for 50 weeks of the year. That is a total of 250 per year, or 2500 in 10 years, 5000 in 20 years, and 7500 in 30 years.

If each blob received just 500 hits that would be a total of 3,750,000 hits in 30 years. If those hits could average you an income of $1 per blog you could become a $3.75 millionaire in thirty years.

The moral of the story is: Hang in there, you never know when your once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity will bring home the bacon, (or is that meant to be the groceries).

Olive found a once in life time Blue Moon Opportunity to make her mark. You can do the same.

If you would like to know more about the author take a few minutes to check out a Blue Moon Opportunity that could change your life, at Win A Resort.

The legendary Koh-i-Nor diamond was lost for quite some time, after the handover from the Sikhs, to British rule, in 1849. It was only after repeated requests from Britain to Sir John Lawrence, Governor General of India, that the diamond was found again. Finally the gardener asked if they were looking for “The bit of glass in the old tin in the tool-shed?”

Sir Lawrence had been handed the fabled diamond as part of the spoils of war, without being aware of what he had been given. Perhaps it is just as well, as any male owner, or wearer of the diamond was said to possess the world, but also a world of the worst misfortune. Only a woman (or god) may wear or possess the diamond in safety.

The Koh-i-Nor diamond weighed around 793 carots when it was mined in India, some say 4000 years ago. The first cut took it to an undistinguished diamond weighing 186 carots. It was not until Queen Victoria ordered a further cut, that the brilliant 108.93 Koh-i-Nor we  know today, was revealed.

For 213 years the fabled stone was in the possession of Delhi Moguls. It was held by Tehran for 109 years and in Afghan’s possession for 66 years. All claim the stone back from Britain, who has held it for 160 years.
It is a diamond that has never been bought or sold, though it has changed hands many times and long been the eye of the storm. It has left a trial that involves war, greed, power, murder, mayhem, brutality and torture, not to mention deceit, double dealing and mountains of unhappiness. The curse-legend was so strong there was some talk of Queen Victoria returning the stone to India. Instead though, she placed it in a tiara, along with 2000 other diamonds.

In 1911 it was placed in the centre of a crown for Queen Mary to wear for the coronation ceremony.

Again in 1937 it was transferred to another coronation crown, for Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. The only other time the crown was taken from behind its high-security armoured glass in the Tower of London, was in 2002, when it was placed on the top of the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother’s coffin, as it proceeded from St James Palace to Westminster Abbey. There it remained on public view, as people filed past to pay their respects to the last Empress of India. One can only imagine the security that would have surrounded the crown jewel during this time.

Whether we believe in the curse of the Koh-i-Nor or not, it is doubtful that any man in the British realm, will have the courage to wear the fabled diamond.

Only now is there a possibility that the round Koh-i-Nor may be dwarfed by a new rough diamond found in a tiny nation of South Africa. A diamond that as yet remains unnamed and unvalued. A diamond that has the highest rated colour and clarity. Analysts, using high tech computers, estimate the diamond will cut into a modern round at about 150 carats.

To find out more about the author take a few minutes to check out Win A Resort and a genuine Blue Moon Opportunity

If you book an ocean cruise that goes through the Suez Canal and the Gulf Aden, past the pirate-infested coastline of Somalia, you will find your ticket entails a lot of extra expenses.

Hapag-Lloy, the German Hamburg-based cruise operator, announced on Wednesday that its 246 passengers, from the MV Columbus, would now disembarked at the Yemeni port of Hodeidah. The passengers would be flown by charter plane to Dubai, where they will spend three days in a five-star hotel, waiting for their 150-meter ship to arrive. Should the MV Columbus manage to survive running the gauntlet of the pirate-infested waters, the passengers will re-embark at the Omen port of Salalah. They will then continue their around-the-world tour, which commenced in Italy. In this way the company hopes to minimize the piracy risk to the passengers.

Abdul Haasan has led the Central Regional Coast Guard, formed only three years ago. This group has unleashed a storm of terror and fear on one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. They claim: “We are eco-warriors, or marines defending Somali waters from foreign exploitation.” Yet the Saudi Arabia, state-owned Sirius Star, the world’s largest oil tanker, was hijacked on November  18th 833 km off the Somali coast.

The remote decrepit Somali fishing outpost, Eyl, has become the piracy capital of the world. Secondary school kids education and head for Eyl, enticed by the alluring promise of making big dollars.

“Armed guards will now be posted on vulnerable cargo ships using the Gulf, in the first such deployment of military personnel, in the international fight against piracy,” says the European Union’s anti-piracy mission in a statement yesterday. Warships from Greece, Britain and France, plus two maritime surveillance aircraft from France and Spain will police the area. It is expected that a German war ship will join the anti-piracy mission mid December.

Merchant vessels owned by Indian shipping companies will place armed guards on vessels moving through the Gulf of Aden. “Once the ships are out of the danger zone, the armed guards will disembark. This will be a very expensive exercise,” stated Captain Anshul Rajvanshi of the Mumbai-based Ebony shipping company. “However, once the pirates have boarded a vessel, negotiation is the only safe way left open to us.”

Armed with information from relatives in custom offices, a typical ‘day-at-the-office’ for the 350 Somali pirates, with their mother ships and 100 small crafts, it is merely a matter of deciding which ship to attempt to hijack next. With the world in financial crises it seems the Somali pirates have created their own ‘pot of gold’.
40 ships have been hijacked, of the 90 attempted attacks this year. To view the full extent of world-wide piracy it is worth taking a few minutes to Google a live IBM Piracy Map.

To learn more of the author take a quick look at a genuine once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity at Win A Resort

They say survival goes to the fittest, but it was survival of the fattest that saved a morbidly obese 12 year-old border collie-mix, weighing around 120 pounds.

Unfortunately Jiffy made the mistake of sitting his behind on the sidewalk in Wisconsin, USA, only to become firmly attached to the freezing surface.

Jiffy’s 59 year old owner said the dog refused to come inside. However, she says, she did check on the dog several times during the night.

As the temperatures continued to plummet, Jiffy sat alone, on the pavement outside his owner’s home. Carey Payne, a Sheboygan County Shelter manager said, “Few dogs could have survived the single-digit temperatures. Probably it was Jiffy’s layers of fat that saved the dog’s life, combined with the double coat of soft undercoat and top coarse hair.”

In the morning local Shelter workers had to pour warm water over Jiffy’s rear end, in order to unstick the dog from the pavement. “It is too soon to tell if the dog has any long term effects.”

On Thursday morning, Jiffy’s owner was arrested by the Sheboygan police, on grounds of animal neglect.
Border collies are widely accepted as the most intelligent of all dog breeds.  Normally highly energetic, they play hard and work hard. Most border collies are well behaved dogs, eager to please their human handler. They are reserved with strangers and very protective of human family members.

The actions of Jiffy’s owner leaves many questions unanswered. If she had gone close enough to Jiffy surely she would have seen that the dog was stuck on the pavement? What about the dog’s behavior when he was called but couldn’t come?  Neighbours must have heard the distressed dog barking?

Perhaps the obese size of Jiffy tells us all we need to know about the knowledge and ability of the owner. Let’s hope that Jiffy will get a once in a lifetime Blue Moon Opportunity and find a new and better home for the New Year and doesn’t get left in the cold again.

To find more out about the author and a genuine Blue Moon Opportunity go to Win a Resort

It used to be the waters of the South China Sea and Malacca Straits between Malaysia and Indonesia. were the dangerous waters for shipping. This is now changing in the light of the ever increasing hijackings along the Kenyan Coast, in the Gulf of Aden.

These hijackings are nothing more than high-seas robbery with the terrorist intent of demanding millions of dollars in ransom money.