Five Things that Hinder Happiness
The first of 5 things that we allow to hinder our own happiness.
Today I will tell you why procrastination blocks my happiness. I think you will easily see the many parallels in what it does to you as well.
The American version of the King James Bible has an interesting verse. It is in Proverbs. It is in Chapter 20 at verse 13. It says,
Proverbs 20:13 Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty ; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
I’d like to borrow that for my message, with one small change,
Proverbs 20:13 Love not PROCRASTINATION, lest thou come to poverty; don’t continue doing it, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
Poverty is obvious something to be avoided. But another thing for everyone to avoid is feeling unhappy about too much work or too much stress. In my work I feel very bad when I fail to complete even the most short termed of projects. I believe and hope that you will come to believe with me, that happiness can be gained by avoiding these situations. Further up river we find that we can’t make our selves happy by working harder, working faster or working longer hours.
At the source of the river I often find that I have started a busy schedule with the strange human behavior of doing something else first. Usually this has nothing to do with my schedule. It could be calling someone to say, “Hi”. Checking a Twitter feed. Planning a meal. These seem like pleasant alternatives to attacking the day. But, they are not. This is simply procrastination and the behavior needed to be defined with a more detrimental word. It sounds like day-dreaming. In reality it is day destroying.
Therefore, the unhappiness and stress you feel as the work day ends with your lack of completion or your failure to progress all starts with procrastination.
Stop it and you will have added more happiness to your work day.
Next week’s sermon: The Denial of Peace thanks to Multitasking
And now, The Puzzle of the Sad Tree
Show a young one these two pictures.
They are of the same tree.
Ask the child to answer this riddle.
Which picture shows the tree when it was happy?
Now we as adults know that a tree can’t be happy. A tree has no emotions like we do. But think of is this way, pretend that the tree does have feelings and they day I saw the tree with all of its flowers blooming—the tree knew how happy it made me.
Something made me happy. So in effect the tree on the left really is a happy tree.
The lesson is this; as you wander this world be aware of the expression on your face. If you smile you will make others happy. If you wear a frown or simply don’t care you can make others sad. Unlike the tree you actually can control the amount of happiness that all around you see.