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Jamal Lloyd Johnson | Creating a Happiness Circle of Friends

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  Jamal Lloyd Johnson | There's an old saying that comes to mind when considering this week's topic, and it is this: "When you run with the dogs, you start to smell like them."   You may have heard a slightly different version of this bit of folk wisdom: "When you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas." It's the same concept, though an infestation of actual living critters seems more ominous than a simple odor. Or maybe that depends on the odor in question? These old expressions tend to stick with us best when they have the ring of truth to them, and particularly if that truth is timeless. This is a good example of a timeless truth, and we might reword it this way: The people we spend time with have an influence on us. The best example of this phenomenon among humans is seen in teenagers. Teens who hang out together often coordinate the outfits they wear; they might share musical tastes and pastimes. They often talk similarly, with similar
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Jamal Lloyd Johnson | Message Of Encouragement During Troubling Times

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  These are troubling times, to say the least. Jamal Lloyd Johnson | We are confronting the most widespread, extensive, global health emergency in at least 100 years. Our economy is staggering like a boxer battered into delirium. Opinions have become "facts." Social unrest is boiling. Political "discourse" (such as it is), centered around the removal or retention of arguably the most controversial, divisive, polarizing administration anyone can remember; has devolved to that of a couple of three-year-olds shouting "You're a poo-poo head!" "No, your face is!" It feels like we're together, untethered in a 1950s rusty, claptrap old school bus; sans seatbelts, careening down a potholed mountain roadway, out of control, hanging on for dear life while screaming in terror for someone to save us as we hurl towards a cliff on November 3. We're hoping we don't go over the edge; assuming all will eventually be okay. Yet, that grating, i
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Jamal Lloyd Johnson | How To Be Happy - Be Grateful!

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  Happiness Is A Choice Jamal Lloyd Johnson | How To Be Happy? There are 2 types of happiness. There is the happiness that we feel in response to an external event or circumstance. An obvious example of this would be our reaction to winning the lottery! Then there is the happiness that is cultivated internally. This is the energy that arises as a conscious choice rather than the more ephemeral reaction to a piece of good news.   In this article we are going to focus on happiness as a choice. How To Be Happy - And How Things Are We all struggle and strive to attain health, wealth and personal happiness. Yet these three big areas: our health, our wealth and our relationships are where we all get hung out to dry - sooner or later. It is as though there is an inbuilt design flaw that ensures that we all suffer at some point - one way or another. In the Buddhist perspective, "seeing things as they are" (Sanskrit yatha-bhutam darshanam) basically means to see that a
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