Ancient wisdom reveals 6 rituals that will make you happy

Ancient wisdom reveals 6 zeremoniells that will make you happyAncient wisdom reveals 6 rituals that will make you happyPeople have enormous respect for ancient wisdom. They just dont read it. Funny thing is, were more likely to live happier lives when we visit the classics section than the self-help aisle.So how do we get the skinny on what one group of brilliant dead guys - The Stoics - had to say? Well, for that, I called my friend Ryan.Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy. His new book isThe Daily Stoic 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living.So whatcan the guys who invented the toga party teach us about living well? Lets get to it1. Events dont upset you. Beliefs doYou get dumped by someone youre totally in love with. Feel sad? God, yes. The world is going to end.Okay, saatkorn scenario, but afterwardsyou find out that rolle was actually a psychopath who killed their last three partners. Feel sad you got d umped? No, youre thrilled.Soclearly getting dumped isnt the importantfactor here. What changed? Nothing but your beliefs.If you lose your job and believe it was a lousy position and believe it wont be hard for you to get a better job, youre unfazed.If you believe it was the greatest job ever and believe youll never get another one that good - youre devastated.Emotions arent random. They follow from beliefs.Heres RyanThe Stoics are saying there are no good or bad events, theres only perception. Shakespeare encapsulated it well when he said, Nothing either good nor bad but thinking makes it so. Shakespeare and the Stoics are saying that the world around us is indifferent, it is objective. The Stoics are saying, This happened to me, is not the same as, This happened to me and thats bad. Theyre saying if you stop at the first part, you will be much more resilient and much more able to make some good out of anything that happens.Skeptical? Sound too simple? Guess what? You couldnt be mo re wrongThis part of Stoic philosophy was adapted by famed psychologist Albert Ellis to form Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - which is now the dominant method for helping people overcomeproblems ranging from depression to anxiety to anger.Most of the bad feelings you haveare caused by irrational beliefs.Next time youre feeling negative emotions, dont focus on the event that you think caused them. Ask yourself what belief you hold about that event. And then ask yourself if its rationalIf my partner dumps me, Ill never get over it.If I lose my job, my life is over.If I dont finish reading this post, the writer will hate me forever.Only the third one is true. The other two are irrational. And thats why you get anxious, angry or depressed.Revise your beliefs and you can change your feelings Even if they dump me, I can meet someone else. Its happened before and I got over it.(To learn more from Albert Ellis about how to never be frustrated again, click here.)So youre revising your beliefs to overcomesadness and anger. Awesome. But what about when youre unhappy because youre worried about the future?2. Control what you can. Ignore the restYou know the Serenity Prayer?God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.Reinhold Nieburh came up with it around 1934. The Stoics were preachingthat basic idea, oh, about 2000 years earlier.The Stoics were really big on control. But they were not control freaks at all. A key part of Stoicism is just asking yourself, Can I do anything about this?If you can, do it. If you cant then you cant. But worrying achieves nothing but stress.Heres RyanWhat the Stoics are saying is so much of what worries us are things that we have no control over. If Im doing something tomorrow and Im worried about it raining and ruining it, no amount of me stressing about it is going to change whether it rains or not. The Stoics are saying, Not only are you going to be h appier if you can make the distinction between what you can change and cant change but if you focus your energy exclusively on what you can change, youre going to be a lot more productive and effective as well.Heres a quick visual to help get the point acrossNext time youre worrying, pause and ask yourself, Do I have control over this? If you do, stop worrying and get to work.If you dont have control, worrying wont make it better. And going back to the first point, it might be a good idea to ask yourself what your belief is thats causing all this worry Yeah, its probably irrational.(To learn more lifehacks from a variety of ancient thinkers, click here.)Sosadness, anger and worrying are irrational responses andtheyre not the right way to react when things happen. So what is the right way to react to stuffthat doesnt meet your expectations?3. Accept everything. But dont be passiveThis is the one everybody has trouble with. Nobody likes the word accept. We think itmeans give up. It do esnt.Lets look at it this way whats the opposite of accept? Deny. As in denial. And nobody ever recommends denial.Albert Ellis told people theyd be much happier if they removedthe word should from their vocabulary. Should is denial. Youre saying your expectations deserve to override realityMy kids shouldnt be misbehaving (News flash they are.)Traffic shouldnt be this bad(Um, but it is.)It shouldnt be raining (Say it louder. Complaining might work this time.)Denial is irrational, and as we just learned, irrational beliefs are wherenegative emotions come from. So the first step is to accept reality.But that doesnt mean you have to be passive.You accept the rain. Its here. Denial and shoulds wont change anything but that doesnt mean you cant grab an umbrella.Heres RyanAcceptance to us means resignation but to the Stoics it meant accepting the facts as they are and then deciding what youre going to do about them. The problem is that because we have expectations about how we want things to be, we feel like acceptance is settling, when in reality we have no idea what could have happened instead. This awful thing might have saved us from something much worse. Or maybe this is going to open us up to some new amazing opportunity that we cant yet conceive. The Stoics are saying, Lets not waste any energy fighting things that are outside our control, lets accept them, lets embrace them and then lets move on and see what we can do with it.Next timethings dont go your way, dont deny reality. Accept it. Its here. Then ask if you have control over it. If you do, do something. If you dont, ask if your beliefs are rational.Thats how you go from It shouldnt be raining We cant go to the park The day is ruined to Yeah, its raining. No park today. Lets see an awesome movie.(To learn the neuroscience behind mindfulness, another ancient happiness technique, click here.)Alright, weve covered a lot of Stoic methods for beating bad feelings. That covers defense. Lets talk offense. How do you improve your life?4. Choose whose child you will beI know, I know - that doesnt make any sense at all. Hold your horses, Ill explainEverything weve talked about so far happens in your head. And, as we learned, thats where the problems usually start. But if lifes gonna get better we need to learn from other people.Youre not alone in this world. You have so much to learn from others. Role models. Mentors. And Seneca, one of the big cheeses of Stoicism, got the point across with this beautifulquote that I loveWe like to say that we dont get to choose our parents, that they were given by chance yet, we can truly choose whose children we wish to be.When I spoke to Anders Ericsson, the professor who came up with the 10,000 hours theory of expertise, he said the first step in being better at anything (and that includes life) is to find a mentor.Heres AndersThey need to talk to somebody that they really admire, a person that is doing something in a way that they would like to event ually be able to do. Have this person help you identify what it is that you might need to change in order to be able to do what that other person is doing. Interview that person about how they were able to do it, and then have that person help you identify what is it that you cant do right now and what are the steps towards reaching that desired level of performance.Next time you face a challenge, think of someone you admire.Research shows asking yourself What would _____ do? can havepowerful positive effects on your behavior.(To learn how to find the best mentor for you, click here.)Role models and mentors are great for helping you be your best. Buthow do you make sure youre actually improving? How do you know youre making progress toward being the best you?5. Morning and evening rituals are essentialPlenty of research shows that rituals can really improve your life. What type did the Stoics recommend?Morning ritualsand evening rituals. One to get you ready for the day, the other t o reflect on how things went and figure out what to improve.Heres RyanThe Stoics thoughtyou should start the day with a ritual of reminding yourself of what youre going to face. Marcus Aurelius said, Today, the people that you face will be and then he proceeds to list basically every negative trait you could possibly encounter in the course of a day. Thats not pessimistic, hes saying, Now that you know this, dont take any of it personally and try to understand why people might act this way and forgive and love them for that. The Stoics believe you start the day with a meditation of whats to come and then you should end the day reflecting on what has transpired and what can be improved.The Stoics didnt believe in perfection. They felt we were alla work-in-progress. You can always be getting better.As Seneca saidAs long as you live, keep learning how to live.(To learn the morning ritual that will keep you happy all day, click here.)Okay, weve learned a lot of ancient wisdom. Lets roun d it up and get the final tip that science agrees is one of the most powerful happiness boostersSum upHeres howancient wisdom from the Stoics canhelp yoube happierEvents Dont Upset You. Beliefs Do Only the end of the world is the end of the world.Control What You Can. Ignore The Rest Worrying never fixed anything.Accept Everything. But Dont Be Passive Nobody recommends denial. Accept. And then do something.Choose Whose Child You Will Be What would Batman do in this situation?Morning And Evening Rituals Are Essential Plan for the day, then reflect on the day.Marcus Aurelius classic book Meditationsstarts out kinda weird. He mentions all the people who he feels indebted to for having helped him. Its basically a gratitude list.The Stoics were big on gratitude. In fact, in Meditations he wroteDont set your mind on things you dont possess as if they were yours, but count the blessings you actually possess and think how much you would desire them if they werent already yours.A few thousan d years later research would catch up with himon that one.Studies show mentally subtracting cherished moments from your life makes you appreciate them more, makes you grateful and makes you happier.What if I never met my partner? What if my child was never born? Wow, I am so lucky to have them in my life.You dont need that shiny new thing in order tosmile. Take a second to appreciate all the shiny things you already have that arent so new.New is overrated. Sometimes ideas from thousands of years ago are all we need to be happy.Join over 285,000 readers.Get a free weekly update via emailhere.Related postsHow To Get People To Like You 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior ExpertNew Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You HappyNew Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More SuccessfulThis article originally appeared at Barking Up the Wrong Tree.