{"id":18,"date":"2010-04-08T20:03:46","date_gmt":"2010-04-08T20:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/?p=18"},"modified":"2010-04-20T23:32:09","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T03:32:09","slug":"3-ways-to-enjoy-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/3-ways-to-enjoy-life\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Ways to Increase Life Enjoyment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sunset<\/a>
Enjoying a beautiful sunset on a beach in Ecuador.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As someone who recently fell in love with Leo Babauta’s work, I decided to venture further along the path of figuring out what<\/em> makes me happy.\u00a0 On both his minimalism blog<\/a> and his simple productivity blog<\/a>, Leo does an excellent job of outlining simple practices that can improve one’s overall happiness.<\/p>\n

Ironically, many people think that having an extreme amount of money, being better looking, and being famous will make them happy.\u00a0 However, that’s not even close to being true.\u00a0 The public perception of happiness is becoming skewed and it’s time to re-evaluate.\u00a0 Going back to one of my earlier points, as one of my favorite humor sites said, fame, wealth, beauty, extreme intelligence, and power will not make you happy<\/a>.\u00a0 Here, then are three ways I’ve learned to enjoy life a little bit more.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

LIVE IN THE MOMENT<\/strong>.\u00a0 A big cause of stress is thinking about the past and future. I do it all the time and from what my friends have said, they do it too.\u00a0 I’ll get worried about a test I have in a few days, a deliverable I have to get done for a client, or how I haven’t talked to my family in three weeks (sorry, Mom!\u00a0 I’ll call you eventually, I swear!).\u00a0 However, there’s a way to mitigate the stress of thinking about the future and the past: focus on the NOW.\u00a0 There are a few ways this can be accomplished, but I like to do the following: Close my eyes for 10 seconds and focus on my breathing.\u00a0 This is a very common trait of meditation, and it works great!\u00a0 Additionally, if I’m walking down the street I focus on my surroundings: the trees, the buildings, the crazy people running down the street, whatever keeps me focused on the present situation.<\/p>\n

READ A COMIC EVERY MORNING<\/strong>.\u00a0 Waking up can be brutal.\u00a0 Maybe it’s snowing, maybe you stayed up late the previous night, maybe it’s just one of those days.\u00a0 What better way get through a rough start to the day than by laughing?\u00a0 Every morning before I get out of bed, I reach to my laptop and open up my Internet browser to a daily comic (Garlfield<\/a> and Dilbert<\/a> are my preferences).\u00a0 This little habit has helped me relax more in the morning.\u00a0 Developing this habit will improve your mood and increases the enjoyment you carry throughout the day.\u00a0 Personally, I think checking the news in the morning is a waste of time and a horrible start to the day.\u00a0 Many of the news headlines are depressing; deaths, war, and money market crashes are some of the more recent headlines I’ve seen.\u00a0 As Thomas Jefferson so adequately put it, “I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”\u00a0 Avoid the news in the morning and replace it with comics.<\/a><\/p>\n

SPEND MORE TIME EATING MEALS<\/strong>.\u00a0 Time with friends is precious, but we’re so often distracted that we rarely give our friends full attention.\u00a0 One of the more creative and better ways around this is to eat a long meal with friends.\u00a0 By putting away your phone, sitting down at a table with a few friends, and chowing down on food you’re giving and getting the proper amount of attention.\u00a0 The time on this needs to be significant as well: spending 20 minutes on a meal, while an impressive eating feat, will not allow you the proper amount of time to enjoy the time spent with friends.\u00a0 The meal, at minimum, should be an hour and a half.\u00a0 This way, you and your friends have enough time to focus on each other without any distractions.\u00a0 You’ll probably learn a few new things about your friends, too!\u00a0 Mix it up every week to two weeks; add new friends to the mix, do a smaller dinner with only one or two friends, and enjoy!<\/p>\n

What other ways do you try to enjoy life?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As someone who recently fell in love with Leo Babauta’s work, I decided to venture further along the path of figuring out what makes me happy. On both his minimalism blog and his simple productivity blog, Leo does an excellent job of outlining simple practices that can improve one’s overall happiness.<\/p>\n

Ironically, many people think that having an extreme amount of money, being better looking, and being famous will make them happy. However, that’s not even close to being true. The public perception of happiness is becoming skewed and it’s time to re-evaluate our views. Click to read more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13,12,6,128],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-productivity","tag-happiness","tag-meditation","tag-minimalism","tag-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}