Most of our happiness is not determined by events in our life but how we respond to them

• I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life, than on the nature of those events themselves. Alexander Von Humboldt
• Obviously, circumstances alone do not make us happy or unhappy. It is the way we react to circumstances that determines our feelings. Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is within you. That is where the kingdom of hell is, too. Dale Carnegie
• Our ability to respond to what happens to us—our response- ability—dramatically affects our happiness. Happy people respond to the events in their lives in a way that supports their inner peace and well- being. Marci Shimoff
• Living consciously,  Happiness,  Choice,  Free will,  Interpretation,  Awareness

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Consciously be aware of the way you respond to events in your life –   and realise you are free to choose

• We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them. Epictetus
• Between stimulus and response there’s a space, in that space lies our power to choose our response, in our response lies our growth and our freedom. Viktor Frankl
• While we cannot always choose what happens to us, we can choose our responses. Stephen Covey
• Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness. Stephen Covey
• Pay attention the next time you feel yourself being triggered and see if you can sneak into that little space between stimulus and response and actually STOP the automatic, knee- jerk response and choose a more empowered one. Brian Johnson
• Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future. Deepak Chopra
• Master your responses to external events–don’t attempt to control them. Caroline Myss
• Mastering proactive responses will take time and practice. You may not always succeed, but just remembering that you have a choice will make a great deal of difference. Stephen Covey
• The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Stephen Covey
• You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values. Stephen Covey
• Between stimulus and response, you have the freedom to choose your response based on self-awareness, your imagination, your conscience and your independent will. Stephen Covey
• Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us. Stephen Covey
• Do not get upset with people or situations. both are powerless without your reaction.
• There are ways to learn to not act immediately on the feeling you are having. Mindfulness is a skill that helps you develop a pause between feeling and acting so you’re not ruled by whatever emotion you are experiencing. Karyn Hall, PHD
• Awareness,  Choice

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Respond consciously, don’t react impulsively

• If you’re not cultivating mindfulness, you’re cultivating reactivity. Jon Kabat-Zinn
• The secret is to consciously respond based on inspiration, imagination, intuition and divine intelligence, not to simply react based on memory, conditioning, and impulse. Geraldine Evans
• When you have the constant focus of going within and then acting, your life will unfold in magical ways. Elizabeth Joy
• Be a conscious reponder, not an unconscious reactor. Geraldine Evans
• Be a creator, not a reactor. Alan Cohen
• When you live in reaction, you give your power away. Then you get to experience what you gave your power to.   Smith
• The genius inside can be awakened by consciously breaking the habit of knee-jerk reactions to what comes your way.  Jim Hartness
• Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. Charles R. Swindoll
• Accept Circumstances – Choose Responses. Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction. Rita Mae Brown
• Have the courage to act instead of react. Earlene Larson Jenks
• The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.Gloria Anzaldua

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Stephen Covey’s process for choosing to respond to an event in a conscious, proactive way

• How important is the situation to you on a scale of 1–5?
• What is the stimulus to your frustration or unhappiness?
• What is your initial response – frustration, anger, fear, etc.?
• What other choices might exist between the stimulus and the response?
• Which is the best proactive response?
• Do you choose to use the response you’ve chosen or exit the situation?
• Review your performance to see how proactive you are.
• Proactiveness

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Mindfulness can make us less reactionary to our emotions and impulses

• Practice makes us more observant and deliberate; we become more thoughtful about reacting to emotions and impulses; more curious, ready to look beneath the surface, not so hasty about jumping to conclusions; kinder, more patient, more tolerant of others and ourselves. One of the key elements in mindfulness is detaching a little from thoughts, worries, and impulses; not taking immediate action but expecting that if you take a step back, think, and look inside yourself, you’ll probably make a wiser decision. Richard O’Connor
• Mindful meditation has been discovered to foster the ability to inhibit those very quick emotional impulses. Daniel Goleman
• Mindfulness

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Final thoughts

• In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened. Harold S. Kushner
• Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future. Deepak Chopra
• Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action. Edwards Deming
• Awareness is like bringing a light to the darkness of mindless reactions. Once you can see them more clearly, you can choose to respond more skillfully. Bob Stahl

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