My Wish for You

This is a picture of some of you in 3rd grade. Can you tell which exercise you're supposed to be doing?

My simple wish for all of my students: that you grow up to be happy and healthy.

Sounds simple right? Maybe not. The SF Chronicle recently published a series of articles on happiness, such as how to be happy, who is happy, why people aren't happy and how your happiness affects your health.

One thing these articles showed was that happy people tended to be healthier than unhappy people.

This is easy to understand, once you think about it. Happy people tend to take better care of themselves. Unhappy people tend to use artificial means to make themselves feel better. Things like too much food or alcohol or drugs. Happy people tend to enjoy every day. Unhappy people tend to stress out or get depressed, which makes them prone to illness.

I wish you happiness and health because the two go together.

So, how do make yourself a happy person?

There's lots of things you can do. Some may sound silly, others may sound difficult. Mostly, your happiness will depend on your ability to get along with other people and how you feel about yourself. Keep reading this blog for suggestions on how to make your interpersonal relationships meaningful. I've already given you a big suggestion: learn to listen to each other.

Here's another: accept people for who they are, not who you think they should be. Then, learn to see the good in people.

An old saying: "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."