Bryan Cohen here, guest poster and author, promoting my new book The Post-College Guide to Happiness for The Happiness Blog Tour. I'm giving away free digital review copies of the book and doing a giveaway for paperback copies, audio copies and even a Kindle Fire! Read on and check out the info below the post.
"If you smile when no one else is around, you really mean it."
- Andy Rooney
A Reason to Smile
Have you ever gone down a city street and seen a collection of dour and grumpy faces without seeing a single smile? It's common for me and perhaps it always has been. After all, people frequently have a lot on their mind and many of those things give them nothing to smile about. In fact, some people associate a person who grins to himself as being a little bit crazy. I want to turn that idea on its head a bit.
There are so many wonderful things in this world. We have somehow survived millions of years as a species to get to this point. We've had friends and family support us, good and bad things alike teach us how to live and we've had moments of joy with people we love. Isn't it a little crazy not to be smiling more about all of this? If you need a little help, how about I give you ten questions. The answers to these questions will be reasons to smile. Let's give it a go.
10. What's the best thing that happened to you this week?
9. What is the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?
8. What is something that you're looking forward to this year?
7. What would be the best thing that could happen to you today?
6. What are three reasons that you are lucky and fortunate?
5. How much more intelligent and interesting are you now than you were 10 or 20 years ago?
4. What is the coolest toy you had as a kid?
3. What's the best news you've ever gotten?
2. What is the most beautiful thing you've ever witnessed?
1. What are two instances in which you've exceeded your own and others expectations?
Why are questions like these helpful to improving your mood? It's because the mind loves questions. If you give the brain a question to ruminate upon it goes wild with energy trying to answer the question from every possible direction. The problem is that we usually ask ourselves crappy questions. We ask things like, "How could I have been so stupid?" or "Why is she acting like such a jerk?" that get our negativity going off the charts. Try one of these 10 questions instead to get yourselves in a more thoughtfully positive mood. Perhaps if we made this positive question policy standard, we'd have a lot more reason to smile when no one else is around.
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Bryan Cohen is giving away 61 paperback and audio copies of The Post-College Guide to Happiness and a Kindle Fire between now and May 7th, 2012 on The Happiness Blog Tour. All entrants receive a free digital review copy of The Post-College Guide to Happiness. Bryan hopes to give away at least 1,000 copies during the blog tour. To enter, post a comment with your e-mail address or send an e-mail to postcollegehappiness (at) gmail.com. Bryan will draw the names at the end of the tour. Entries will be counted through Sunday, May 6th.
Bryan Cohen is a writer, actor and comedian from Dresher, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2005 with degrees in English and Dramatic Art and a minor in Creative Writing. He has written nine books including 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts: Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More, 500 Writing Prompts for Kids: First Grade through Fifth Grade, Writer on the Side: How to Write Your Book Around Your 9 to 5 Job and his new book, 1,000 Character Writing Prompts: Villains, Heroes and Hams for Scripts, Stories and More. His website Build Creative Writing Ideas helps over 25,000 visitors a month to push past writer's block and stay motivated.
Feel free to follow along with the tour at The Happiness Blog Tour Hub Page or on the book's Facebook Page.
Thanks Donna for letting me be a part of your blog!
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