it really is not selfish to consider your own happiness as your top priority for the following three reasons.

You are importantIt is true. You are an important person. I don’t care about your profession, employment status, or income. You are important. Look back at your past. Think about how different the world around you might be if you had not been born. How has your life impacted others? Don’t dismiss small contributions as unimportant because the truth is that it is often these many small changes that lead to a greater good.
   Now think about your life right now. How many people depend on you among your family, friends, and community? If you stayed in bed tomorrow how many lives would be affected by your absence?
   Now think about your future. What potential exists for your life to impact the lives of others? Think about your home and family, your friends and community, and your professional life. Don’t think about probabilities but rather possibilities. You have the potential to change many lives just by being you and living your life. You are important because you are the sum total of all these effects: your past, your present, and your future. What you have done, what you are doing, and what you can do in the future are all the elements that make you an important and valuable person who deserves to be happy.

Your happiness people aroundWhile your family and friends should not depend on you to make them happy it is very true that if you are unhappy you can make it much more difficult for others around you to be happy.
   There is an old saying that frequently crops up on sitcoms and tee shirts, “If Momma Ain’t Happy, Ain’t Nobody Happy.” This is often good for a laugh but we all know it is true. If a parent is unhappy then often the rest of the household will be unhappy too.
   It only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole barrel, as another the old saying goes, and this is true whenever any group of humans gathers together. If one friend or family member is not happy then their unhappiness can spread to infect the others in the group.
   You deserve to be happy for yourself but you should also strive for happiness so if you are going to spread a mood then it will be a good one.

Your happiness affects the worldHow many times have you been simply going through life, not really in a good or bad mood, and then someone took a moment to give you a smile. What happened to your mood? Did you smile back? Another old saying is that smiles are contagious and this may be a very powerful argument for your own personal happiness.
   Can you imagine possessing the power to spread smiles? You do not need to imagine it because you already possess that power.
   You simply need to get yourself into the habit of smiling. Smile at your loved ones, smile at your friends, and smile at strangers on the street, and soon you will be making a strong contribution to make the world a happier place.
   Your happiness is important because you are a significant person, your mood impacts your family and friends, and your happiness affects the world. 
 By  :  Deanna Mascle is a teacher, coach and freelance writer in the USSource : sunday times 

Is it possible to consciously choose to create a more satisfying life experiences?   The reason why most peo ple have only a few satisfying life experiences is because they are almost completely unconscious. They are operat ing on automatic, on subcon scious programs that run qui etly in the background, dictat ing their every move, pulling on their emotional strings, se lecting their perceptions, and organising their experiences around past hurts, fears, and insecurities.
   Ironically, they think that they are conscious. Acting out in a crazy, self- and other-de structive way is not con scious. And it is only because of acting out on our drives that we are unconscious Someone who is conscious does not let their drives dic tate their thoughts, feelings and actions. Instead, they choose the best possible op tions available to them based on what they currently know A casual survey of people around you will quickly re veal that impulsive actions are the norm. Rationality takes a back seat to innate ten dencies and urges.
   The way to become con scious is to become aware Awareness is stepping back and looking at everything for the first time. It is pulling the subjective ego state out of the equation and making an at tempt to see what is the way that it is. Awareness is not simple. It is not something that you naturally snap into And this is why spiritual dis ciplines like yoga, focusing on your breath, meditation mindfulness, and so on exist and have the power to change your life for the better. The natural state for human be ings is to be hypnotised by the onslaught of conditioning that began since birth. Thus the natural state for human beings is to be unnatural. It is to perceive through the lens of bias. It is to hear selectively. It is to act impulsively, regard less of consequences. It is to defend the ego from all possi ble threats while at the same time pretending to make a show of being open-minded rational, and even objective.
   Another way of describing this phenomenon is to say that the neocortex is used much less often than the mammalian or reptilian por tions of the human brain. Yet it is only the highly-developed and functional neocortex which will inform our actions to choose the best possible ex periences. The emotional brain and the instinctive brain take over the show.
   Thus, if we desire to have more satisfying life experi ences, we have to be present to the moment. This means that we have to be aware. We have to be cognisant of the envi ronment. And we have to recognise our own subcon scious programs trying to bubble up to the surface to take over our experience.
   If you are aware enough the past does not have to equal the future. You can, in fact choose your ideal future and find ways to reach it. Howev er, because most people are not aware enough that the fu ture happens to be a constant repetition of past patterns.
   The weight of past experi ences, because it is unexam ined and therefore uncon scious, has a stronger pull on them. The way to create awareness is to take on the practice of some psychologi cal or spiritual discipline which will train you to think in an original and creative way. Those who choose not to examine the past are con demned to repeat it.
   Cultivating awareness is not easy, but there is nothing more worthwhile. The culmi nation of supreme awareness is enlightenment, the uncan ny ability to be in a stream of constantly unfolding satisfy ing experiences.
   Ultimately, it is a spiritual experience to be in charge of your own mind and direct it away from unconscious act ing out to conscious delibera tion. The culmination of this discipline is awareness. And the gift of awareness is con nection with your own divine nature.