The alarm clock blares and jolts you from a deep sleep.

You slowly reach over and fumble for the off switch. Prying heavy eyelids open, you see a blur of digital numbers beckoning you out of bed. Yep, it’s that time—again.

Time to get up and get going.

The shower awaits you. Your coffee pot awaits you. The front door and the huge wide world beyond it await you.

Also, one more thing awaits you— a decision.

Are you going to settle for having an okay day, or are you going to have an amazing day? The choice is yours.

Surprisingly, most people are unaware that they have the ability to choose to enhance their level of happiness. It’s a common misconception that what happens to us entirely determines if we’ll enjoy ourselves or not—if when we crawl under the covers at night we’ll glow from the preceding hours, or feel drained and mutter to ourselves, Hmph, glad that one’s over.

Although what happens to us can and often does affect our moods, it doesn’t have to dictate the quality of our lives.

More than anything else, the source of our own happiness resides within us.

It’s dependent upon the state of our minds and heart, and is cultivated by our actions rather than the actions of others. Take up the following seven suggestions and watch your days turn from ho-hum to amazing.

1. Decide to be positive. 

As was pointed out earlier, we can actually affect the quality of our day by choosing to ratchet up our level of happiness. We do this by deciding to have a positive attitude.

Intention is like the GPS system on your phone or in your car. You key in a destination, turn the wheel in that direction, then press the accelerator. Just remain mindful to turn right when necessary, hang a left when your route necessitates it, or simply exit the highway and maintain the center lane while coasting to your next stop. It’s easy to slip into patterns.

When the ego is left unchecked, it will rally all your fears and insecurities and use them to entrench you within a mode of rote living devoid of wonder and enthusiasm. When you decide to see the best in others, to see the positive in all situations, and to be a blessing in the world, your days will ignite with joy.

2. Free yourself.
There are many ways to have your freedom restricted.

Handcuffs come to mind as one. Chinese finger traps are another. A few more would include mindlessly stumbling into a pesky patch of quicksand, accidently adhering the puffy pad of your thumb to a countertop with Super Glue, or having your shoelaces tied together by an impish coworker.

For most of us, however, we simply accomplish this by unintentionally misusing our minds. According to Heather Ash, founder of The Toltec Center of Creative Intent, and the author of The Toltec Path of Transformation, we restrict ourselves by making assumptions.

“When we don’t realize something is an assumption, we perceive the world as if our assumption is reality, which narrows or even closes our perception, awareness, and creativity.” ~ Heather Ash

Sounds kind of like getting stuck while trying to crawl out of a narrow window, but thinking that because you can feel the breeze on your face you’re flying like a bird. Heather’s suggestion for overcoming this tendency is to do an “assumption blast.”

When you notice you’re assuming about anything, “start brainstorming at least three other assumptions you could make about the situation.” Curiosity is more titillating than presumed knowing, and leads to a much healthier perspective from which to engage your day.

3. Maintain a state of wonder.

Okay, so when you leave the regularity of your home and enter the world beyond your front porch, you’ll drive down the same old street, stop at the same old intersections, see the same old storefronts, and pull up to the same old office building or school or supermarket.

Kind of difficult to maintain an inspired attitude, eh?

Keep a few things in mind the next time you’re trudging from A to B to C.

The sunlight reflecting off that same old street sign is traveling at 186,000 miles per second and took a whopping eight minutes and twenty seconds to reach us from the sun, the surface of which happens to be a mere 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Not sufficiently wowed yet?

Well, consider that if you removed all the empty space from human bodies, leaving only the subatomic particles from which matter is composed, all seven billion people alive on Earth today would fit into a container the size of a thimble. When you look at things that way, you’ll recognize the miraculous within the ordinary.

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

Let your day be magical.

4. Be present.

Ever been in the middle of a conversation when you realized you hadn’t heard the last fifty words the other person said because you had mentally drifted?

They were talking about whatever, and you were thinking about needing to stop for gas on the way home because your Volkswagen Jetta was in the red? Or you had visions of gooey lasagna luring you to the bistro down the street? Or you were imaginatively rehashing a disagreement you had with your boyfriend the night before?

It happens to all of us, some more so than others. It’s easy to get distracted.

In fact, most of us are usually mentally and emotionally someplace other than where we physically are. We either have a foot in the past, a hand outstretched to the future, or we’re in the vacuum of la-la land playing the newest free download on our smart phones. There’s a juicy, fascinating world beginning at the tips of our noses. And as for that fertile, numinous world inside ourselves we refer to as I—it’s utterly astonishing, when we’re present enough to truly notice it.

5. Be kind.
We live busy lives, and our society is, at large, a blur of hustle and bustle, ambition and drive.

Culturally, we’re conditioned to seek out instant gratification over deferred pleasure, self-fulfillment over selfless service, acquisition over sacrifice. But do these things really make us happy?

Most people who’ve lived to old age would answer no. They’re means to an end rather than the end themselves. We have been mistakenly led to believe they are paths to self-satisfaction.

But any guru worth his spot on a wicker meditation mat will tell you it’s not the destination that brightens one’s heart, it’s the journey. It’s how we live our day-to-day lives that either derails us to discontentment or transports us to bliss. The renowned Henry James thought it pertinent.

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” ~ Henry James

Kindness is the path, my friend. Seems counterintuitive, but the Universe is uncanny. It blesses her who gives without expecting a return, who does without regard of recompense, who bestows without seeking acclaim. Do good, and you’ll feel good.

6. Meditate.
If you’re unfamiliar with meditation other than the image you have of a bare-chested swami sitting in the lotus position atop a secluded mountain peak, don’t be alarmed. Things have changed since the introduction of Eastern spirituality to the Western hemisphere circa the 1960s. It’s not only for those seeking enlightenment nowadays.

It’s also for all who want to live more centered, aware lives. There are meditation groups on college campuses from the Midwest to the deep South. There are meditation workshops held in small business break rooms as well as corporate conference halls. It’s also practiced by people ranging from Zen Buddhists to contemplative Christians, janitors to CEOs, counselors to soccer moms.

Meditation dissolves the illusions that restrict your inner freedom and tickles the core of your being with a feather of joy.

Best to do two twenty-minute sessions a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. But if all you can commit to right now is five minutes of sitting in stillness while focusing on your breath, that’s a great place to start.

7. Pray.
It’s rumored Pope John Paul II prayed for up to ninety minutes every morning before moseying to St. Peter’s Basilica to perform Mass.

If that seems a whit too much for you, don’t fret. You’re not the Pope.

Although we’d probably all benefit incalculably from such sessions of communing with God, anywhere from a minute on suffices for the more ordinary folk populating the boondocks, suburbs, and major metropolitan sprawls. And with prayer, like pretty much everything else, quality trumps quantity.

Twenty seconds of heartfelt utterance is gold compared to the scrap metal heap of a twenty-minute drivel spree. If you’re a novice at this, give it a go first thing when you wake up, as soon as the soles of your feet hit your carpeted floor.

Kneel at your bedside, elbows on the edge of your mattress, hands clasped, and ask for guidance and blessings. If kneeling and bowing rankle your sense of autonomy, pray laying on your back before you depart from your snug, fluffy comforter.

Oh, and God doesn’t care if you have the pressed pillow face and morning breath. Just pray before you get buffeted by your mile-long list of things to do and forget to get around to it.

The verdict is in—if you’re alright with settling for a mediocre existence sans the joie de vivre available to you, then by all means trudge through the bland hours of your humdrum days.

If, however, you desire to smile uncontrollably and for absolutely no reason, and you want to go to bed at night whispering Thank you to God for the positive change in how you feel, then put in the spiritual leg work and make that your reality. An amazing day is there for the manifesting. It’s up to you to do your part.

Plant the seeds of happiness, water them with willingness and effort, then watch them blossom into a journey of unimaginable joy.

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Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: wikipedia