How to increase your happiness — Transcript

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1. 0:07What would make you happy?
2. 0:08Can you imagine a milestone, a win, or even a material possession
3. 0:12that would unlock this feeling?
4. 0:14In this animated version of David Steindl-Rast’s popular TED Talk,
5. 0:18Brother David explains how a simple adjustment in how you move
6. 0:21through the world might just change what you see,
7. 0:24how you feel, and how you act.
8. 0:31Now my topic is gratefulness.
9. 0:35What is the connection between happiness and gratefulness?
10. 0:40Many people would say, well, that’s very easy.
11. 0:43When you are happy, you’re grateful.
12. 0:46But think again.
13. 0:48Is it really the happy people that are grateful?
14. 0:53We all know quite a number of people who have everything
15. 0:58that it would take to be happy,
16. 1:00and they are not happy, because they want something else,
17. 1:03or they want more of the same.
18. 1:05And we all know people who have lots of misfortune,
19. 1:11misfortune that we ourselves would not want to have,
20. 1:14and they are deeply happy.
21. 1:17They radiate happiness.
22. 1:19You are surprised.
23. 1:20Why? Because they are grateful.
24. 1:23Now, we can ask, what really do we mean by gratefulness?
25. 1:30And how does it work?
26. 1:32Something’s given to us that’s valuable to us.
27. 1:36And it’s really given.
28. 1:38These two things have to come together.
29. 1:40It has to be something valuable, and it's a real gift.
30. 1:44And when these two things come together,
31. 1:47then gratefulness spontaneously rises in my heart,
32. 1:51happiness spontaneously rises in my heart.
33. 1:55That’s how gratefulness happens.
34. 1:57Now, the key to all this
35. 2:01is that we cannot only experience this once in a while.
36. 2:07We can be people who live gratefully.
37. 2:11And how can we live gratefully?
38. 2:14By experiencing,
39. 2:16by becoming aware that every moment is a given moment, as we say.
40. 2:22It’s a gift.
41. 2:23You have no way of assuring that there will be another moment given to you,
42. 2:29and yet, that’s the most valuable thing that can ever be given to us,
43. 2:34this moment, with all the opportunity that it contains.
44. 2:39Does that mean that we can be grateful for everything?
45. 2:44Certainly not.
46. 2:46We cannot be grateful for violence, for war, for oppression, for exploitation.
47. 2:53On the personal level,
48. 2:54we cannot be grateful for the loss of a friend, for unfaithfulness,
49. 2:59for bereavement.
50. 3:01But I didn’t say we can be grateful for everything.
51. 3:05I said we can be grateful in every given moment for the opportunity,
52. 3:11and even when we are confronted with something that is terribly difficult,
53. 3:17we can rise to this occasion
54. 3:20and respond to the opportunity that is given to us.
55. 3:25So how can each one of us find a method for living gratefully,
56. 3:31not just once in a while being grateful, but moment by moment to be grateful?
57. 3:35How can we do it?
58. 3:36It’s a very simple method: Stop. Look. Go.
59. 3:42That’s all.
60. 3:44But how often do we stop?
61. 3:47We rush through life; we don’t stop.
62. 3:50We miss the opportunity because we don’t stop.
63. 3:54We have to stop.
64. 3:56We have to get quiet.
65. 3:58And we have to build stop signs into our lives.
66. 4:03And when you stop, then the next thing is to look.
67. 4:07You look. You open your eyes. You open your ears. You open your nose.
68. 4:12You open all your senses for this wonderful richness that is given to us.
69. 4:18There is no end to it, and that is what life is all about,
70. 4:21to enjoy, to enjoy what is given to us.
71. 4:25And then we can also open our hearts, our hearts for the opportunities,
72. 4:31for the opportunities also to help others, to make others happy,
73. 4:35because nothing makes us more happy than when all of us are happy.
74. 4:39And when we open our hearts to the opportunities,
75. 4:43the opportunities invite us to do something,
76. 4:47and that is the third.
77. 4:48Stop, look, and then go, and really do something.
78. 4:53And what we can do is whatever life offers to you in that present moment.
79. 4:59There is a wave of gratefulness
80. 5:01because people are becoming aware how important this is
81. 5:05and how this can change our world,
82. 5:08because if you’re grateful, you’re not fearful.
83. 5:12If you're not fearful, you're not violent.
84. 5:15If you’re grateful, you act out of a sense of enough
85. 5:19and not of a sense of scarcity, and you’re willing to share.
86. 5:23If you're grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people
87. 5:28and you are respectful to everybody.
88. 5:30And that changes this power pyramid under which we live.
89. 5:34What we need is a networking of smaller groups,
90. 5:39smaller and smaller groups who know one another,
91. 5:42who interact with one another,
92. 5:44and that is a grateful world.