Learning to deal with difficulties and tone down doom-and-gloom thinking is important, but figuring out how to amplify the good stuff is equally integral to your satisfaction with life.

How do you do that?

Through savoring, the art of “generating, intensifying, or prolonging positive feelings in response to positive events,” says Fred Bryant, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago, who coined the term "savoring" as a form of emotional intelligence in the mid1980s.

Savoring: the art of generating, intensifying, or prolonging positive feelings in response to positive events.

Savoring doesnʼt just mean going wild over a piece of dark chocolate or luxuriating in a fragrant bubble bath. It means recognizing happy moments big and small—catching a fly ball in a Little League game, maybe, or making the train in the nick of time—and allowing yourself to fully appreciate and enjoy them. Doing so will help you reach your maximum happiness potential, Bryant says.

Savoring doesn’t just mean going wild over a piece of dark chocolate or luxuriating in a fragrant bubble bath.

It is a sunny Monday morning and I am downstairs in my apartment garage, walking over to my motorcycle, preparing to ride to work.

I'm feeling a bit off (it is Monday morning), a little bummed about having to go to work on such a beautiful day and thinking about how my flat feet are going to be aching me by the day's end.

Just then I see a neighbor shuffling along side of his car with his walker.

I have seen and spoken with him before, on the elevator and such.

He is a black man in his mid-eighties, a veteran of the Korean war, has missing teeth, barely able to walk even with his walker and undergoing treatment for cancer.

In spite of all of the apparent difficultly he has had, and is now going through, he always has an high-spirited demeanor and a smile.

I ask - “how ya doing my friend?!”

“Grateful to be alive!” he responds.

“I've just come from the gym” he adds.

“And if you ever hear me complain, hit me over the head with this thing,” as he points to his walker.

“It just makes me sad to see all those young kids with cancer” as he chokes up and gets teary eyed.

“And the pain in their parent's eyes.”

“So if you ever hear me complaining, hit me over the head with this thing!”

Bliss is never experienced when we are high on something or even on someone! Not the kind of bliss that is stimulated in any way. This is the natural bliss of the soul, of the self, when we are completely free internally. this is freedom from attachment to everything around us including matter, material things, memories, ambitions etc. But it's only possible when we see and realize that our attachments are not 'in reality' out there! Our attachments are created within our own consciousness. It's not the actual objects or persons that we attempt to attach to.

Detachment is not losing or living without all these things or people etc., it's not an avoidance of others or an uncaring attitude. Detachment doesn't diminish our capacity to 'be loving'. Detachment means we no longer 'create' the perception and feeling of being burdened by the other, of being dependent on others or being beholden to others. Like everything else people come and go, they are all there in the dynamic of daily life, part of the fabric of our life, detachment means we cease to make them our source of happiness in life.

The inner state of freedom that gives rise to the feeling of bliss is already there but it's been suppressed and buried. It has been lost to our day-to-day awareness. Almost all addiction is the result of an attempt to resurrect, release and taste the bliss, the purest form human happiness. For centuries meditation and contemplation have been practiced as the natural ways to restore this natural and original state of inner freedom. Attachment is essentially what makes us take life too seriously simply because we make ourselves slaves to the objects of our attachments. In such moments we don't have possessions, it's as if our possessions have us. Liberation from attachment happens when we not only stop attempting to possess but realize its impossible to possess! This then frees us to 'play' at life, to be 'playful' in life, not in a childish way, but in a way that allows our joy and our bliss to shape the energies that we give to others.

Thirty years ago, I drove a cab for a living.

When I arrived at 2:30 A.M, the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window. Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, then drive away. But, I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself. So I walked to the door and knocked. “Just a minute”, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened, A small woman in her 80’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned don it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase.

The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There was no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. in the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware. “Would you carry my bag out to the car?” she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. “It’s nothing”, I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated”. “Oh, you’re such a good boy”, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, then asked, ”Could you drive through downtown?” “It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly. “Oh I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.” I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. “I don’t have any family left,” she continued. “The doctor said I don’t have very long.” I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. “What route would you like me to take?” I asked.

Every single moment we have the choice between the thought systems of Love or fear. Our focus today is to pay attention to what we are choosing all through the day. Love brings peace, gentleness and happiness; fear brings tension, conflict and efforting. If we don’t pay attention to where our mind is, we can easily be led by the fearful thought system of the ego. But we can always choose differently.

Our prayer today is for help in strengthening our awareness of Love’s Answer in each moment. Love will lead us to the happy joining with Love and release us from the guilt of judgment. We choose freedom from judgment today. We listen to Love’s healing guidance. And we give thanks that what we ask for we receive. As we are willing to let go of the past, we receive the gift of Love that fits perfectly in the present moment.

© Copyright 2013, Pathways of Light. http://pathwaysoflight.org

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Be careful in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold.

Familiarity breeds contempt – and children.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

He is now rising from affluence to poverty.

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it.

I have made a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.