Comments on: Happiness http://zoeweil.com/2008/05/19/happiness/ This blog is dedicated to promoting ideas and resources for doing the most good and the least harm to ourselves, other people, animals and the environment. I call this principle MOGO, short for most good, and I welcome your comments and suggestions for how we can create a world in which the MOGO principle guides all people, governments, and businesses. Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:13:36 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Mayim http://zoeweil.com/2008/05/19/happiness/#comment-145 Wed, 21 May 2008 20:35:34 +0000 http://zoeweil.wordpress.com/?p=68#comment-145 There is a wonderful movie called Pay it Forward in which a Jr. High School teacher encourages his students to think of some way to change the world for the better, and then carry out their project. A young teenage boy begins “Pay it Forward” (as opposed to “pay it back”) in which he does a favor someone, but instead of asking them to do a favor for him in return for the favor he has done for them, he tells them to do a favor for someone else, and then tell that person, that instead of paying them back, they should do a favor for yet another person. He taught many people what true happiness is. TRUE happiness is a contentment which comes from knowing that you have done the right, productive, healing thing.

Though both the rapist and the volunteer may say that their behavior makes them “happy” perhaps the rapist’s definition of the word “happy” may be a different definition from the volunteer’s definition of the word “happy.”

When I volunteer, I am “happy” because I know I have made a positive difference in someone’s life. The same word “happy” is being used by two different people to describe two totally different things. People who commit sexual crimes are committing those crimes because they are psychologically and spiritual ill, and though they may use the word “happy” to describe what they feel, they are defining the word “happy” much differently than a philanthropist or volunteer.

It is possible for the same word to be used two different times, and have two totally different meanings.

For those of us who find “happiness” by calming people down, preventing suffering, and protectiong people, the environment and animals, there are several books which act as guides. some of the books which have been recommended by like minded people include

1. 50 Awesome Ways Kids Can Help Animals: Fun and Easy Ways to Be a Kind Kid by Ingrid Newkirk

2. Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times by Zoe Weil (New Society Publishers at newsociety.com)

3. Be the Change You Want to See in the World by Julie Fisher-McGarry

4. Canines in the Classroom (raising humane children through interaction with animals) by Michelle Rivera (Lantern Books at lanternbooks.com)

5. Making Kind Choices: Everyday Ways to Enhance Your Life Through Earth- and Animal-Friendly Living by Ingrid Newkirk

6. So, You Love Animals; An Action Packed, Fun-Filled Book to Help Kids Help Animals by Zoe Weil (New Society Publishers at newsociety.com)

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