The Happiness Choice: The Five Decisions That Will Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

153 Pages·2013·1.09 MB·English

by  Marilyn Tam

Contents
Cover
Praise for The Happiness Choice
Title Page
Copyright
Foreword: Looking for Happiness in All the Right Places
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: This is not the Life I thought I was Living
Chapter 2: Upturn, Downturn, Your Turn
Chapter 3: Life Purpose—Yours
The Four Stages in Life
Sudden and Unexpected Changes
Following Your Life Purpose
Life Purpose, Health, and Happiness
The Life Purpose Exercise Process
Summary of the Life Purpose Process
Chapter 4: One Step at a Time
Quality of Life Quiz
Summary of the Journaling Process
Chapter 5: Money and Other Means of Exchange
How to Make Money
Money and Your Life Mission
“Money Doesn't Talk, It Swears”
Time and Money
Chapter 6: Relationships
Your Relationship with Yourself
Nurturing Your Relationships
How to Nurture Your Relationships
Wabi-Sabi Love
Uncoupling
Further Thoughts on Relationships
Gratitude
Chapter 7: Spirit
The Felt Sense
The Three Pillars of Chinese Wisdom
Spiritual Awakening
Chapter 8: Your Body
Moods, Stress, and Health
Diet, Exercise, Mind, and Health
Diet and Health
Antiaging, Longevity, and Health
The Body's Filtering Systems
Adrenal Glands and Stress
Thyroid and Health
Dental Fillings and Health
Reflections
Chapter 9: Your Community
Making Community, Making Money
Creating New Communities
Vitamin Angels
Another Kind of Global Community
One Small Person
An Uprising of Wellness
Chapter 10: Next Steps
Support Resources
Suggested Study Guide Questions
Acknowledgments
Index
Praise for The Happiness Choice
“As our world seems to move faster, and becomes more impatient and surely
complicated, Marilyn Tam offers a soothing, healing perspective on how we
can deal with our lives. This thoughtful book to me is all about learning to
view the present in a straightforward manner that empowers and energizes our
dreams and talents. Healthy, heartfelt wisdom is to be found here.”
—Andrew Davis,
Academy Award–nominated film director
“Marilyn Tam offers straightforward, usable advice on how to achieve balance
in your life. Happiness in life is a choice, and it is within reach. Marilyn's
unique background, her experiences, and her success have given her valuable
insights into what it takes to achieve happiness in life. The resources she
shares in this book will help you to focus on your life's purpose, prioritize
what is truly important, be healthy, and achieve dynamic balance and
happiness.”
—W. Kenneth Yancey Jr.,
CEO, SCORE Association, resource partner to the U.S. Small Business
Administration
“Your book hit me at the heart. This book is meant for me. This is going to be
my textbook to find my life purpose for the rest of my life. It's not too late
even at 65 years old. I can rebuild my relationship with my family and I can
find my life purpose. A more wonderful life is waiting for me.”
—Shoji Tatsuno, Senior Vice President,
Marubeni America Corporation, retired
“Marilyn Tam has done a tremendous service by encouraging us to take a
close look at five decisions that illuminate the path of ‘relative importance’ of
our life's robust achievements and propel us to higher levels of meaningful
impact and value to the world. This is a must read about the process of
‘editing’ life as a choice and function to achieving balance.”
—Jovita Carranza,
former Vice President for Air Operations,
UPS, and Deputy Administrator,
U.S. Small Business Administration
“Marilyn Tam knows that happiness is a door you open from within. Treasure
The Happiness Choice and let Marilyn help you find your key and open that
door.”
—Mark Albion, Faculty Founder of Net Impact,
co-founder of More Than Money Careers,
New York Times best-selling author
“The themes that Marilyn writes about so poignantly are very close to my
heart. Having worked through my own personal tragedies to succeed in work
and life, I can attest to the power of this life-changing book. Not only does
Marilyn share her story, but she gives you a road map you can follow to create
the life you really want.”
—Libby Gill,
Executive Coach and author of You Unstuck and Traveling Hopefully
“What is happiness? There are too many ideas, for various reasons and for
different people. No straightforward how-to book can be achieved. But from
time to time, new lights are to be gleaned, with insightful suggestions to be
considered. Marilyn Tam's new book combines multiple dimensions of these
possibilities. May happiness embrace you along the Way, all the Way.”
—Chungliang Al Huang, President-Director,
Living Tao Foundation–Lan Ting Institute;
author, Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain:
The Essence of Tai Ji; co-author with Alan Watts,
Tao: The Watercourse Way; with Jerry Lynch,
Thinking Body, Dancing Mind

Cover design: Paul McCartney Copyright © 2013 by Marilyn Tam. All rights
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Tam, Marilyn.
The happiness choice: the 5 decisions that will take you from where you are to
where you want to be / Marilyn Tam.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-118-49316-8 (cloth); 978-1-118-52695-8 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-
52670-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-52660-6 (ebk) 1. Happiness. 2. Self-realization.
3. Conduct of life. I. Title.
BF575.H27T36 2013
158.1–dc23
2012041498
Foreword
Looking for Happiness in All the Right Places

What we need for our happiness is often close at hand, if we knew but how to
seek for it.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne,
American Note-Books, August 22, 1837

When I was in high school, seeking happiness through my studies, and, well,
okay—through the tortured pursuit of love—I read a short story by Nathaniel
Hawthorne that has stuck with me for half a century. It is titled The Birthmark.
The story is an allegory about looking for happiness in all the wrong places.
Alymer, a great scientist, loves his magnificently beautiful wife Georgina
passionately. But she has a small flaw, a scarlet birthmark on her cheek in the
shape of a tiny hand. Obsessed with the imperfection, Alymer devotes himself to
removing it. After considerable labor he invents a potion, which his dutiful wife
swallows to very ill effect.
Hawthorne describes her death in an unforgettable way: “The fatal hand had
grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit
kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark
—that sole token of human imperfection—faded from her cheek, the parting
breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul,
lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight.”
Being a young romantic when I read the story, Georgina's swooning form left
an indelible impression on my psyche. It symbolized the foolishness of thinking
that if only we were perfect, or someone else were perfect, or life was fair then
we would be happy. “I'll be happy when...” is the illusion that stands between us
and the wholehearted act of engaging fully with life, moment by moment, here
and now. It is that deep engagement—whether through love, work, service, or