Ten Tips on How to Live a Happier Healthier Life

By Matshona Dhliwayo

Ten Tips on How to Live a Happier Healthier Life

1.     Be Positive: The mind, heart, soul, and body all work at optimum levels when you are positive.  To lead a happier, healthier life one must then endeavor to be continuously optimistic. 

2.     Exercise: Health is wealth, so one who is unhealthy is poor.  If you have all of the money in the world but no good health, you are among the poorest in the world.  To enjoy your happiest life, you must be whole, and for that, one must be healthy. 

3.     Don’t try to please everyone: If you are good, people will criticize you; and if you are bad, people will criticize you too.  Therefore, don’t waste your life trying to please everyone.  Only please those who matter and you will be happier in life.

4.     Find a job where you use the skills you enjoy: You spend a significant part of your day working; so you might as well do work you like.  The more you love your work the more you will enjoy your life.

5.     Surround yourself with happy people: If a bird wants to fly higher, it will not hang with turkeys, but with eagles.  Likewise, if you want to be happier, surround yourself with people who are just as, if not, happier than you. 

6.     Turn lemons into lemonade: Challenges are inevitable in life, especially if you are reaching for success.  So, learn to turn challenges into opportunities, problems into solutions, risks into rewards, and use arrows enemies throw at you for firewood.

7.     Be grateful: If you have much, be generous; if you have little, be grateful.  One who is ungrateful for little deserves nothing, one who is grateful for little deserves much, and one who is grateful for much deserves all.

8.     Forgive yourself, then forgive others: Acquaintances will wrong you, friends will upset you, family will offend you, and everyone has the potential to sin against you.  Don’t hold onto grudges; it’s too much weight for anyone who wants to receive blessings.  Let go of the past, embrace the present, and prepare for the future.

9.     Give Back: If you earn little, give little.  If you earn much, give much.  But even if you earn nothing, try to give something.  It is not what you hold onto that makes you great, but what you give.

10.  Enjoy life’s journey: Cherish every minute.  Treasure every hour.  Make           each day count.  In life, it is not the destination that counts, but the journey.  Don’t waste days for they become weeks; don’t waste weeks, for they become months; don’t waste months, for they become years, and don’t waste years for they become a lifetime.

Matshona Dhliwayo is a Canadian based Philosopher, Entrepreneur, and author of books such as The Art of Winning, The Little Book of Inspiration, 100 Lessons Every Great Man Wants You to Know, Dinner with King Solomon and Lalibela's Wise Man. He is a regular contributor for The African Leadership Magazine, The CEO Magazine, Health Magazine, The African Union, and other internationally renowned magazines.

Opening image credit: Born Realist website