Taking action to be happy.

The other week I went to my first meeting of a fab group called Action for Happiness. We met in a bar in Brighton but I didn't need  the Booz to give me what turned out to be one of the best nights out I've had In ages - in fact, I only had one pint of Larger  Shandy which lasted me the whole evening.
  Action for Happiness was started as a national organisation by a group who came to believe that you should measure a society’s success not by how rich its members were but by how happy they were and that money, whilst it is essential to have enough to meet our needs, it is certainly not the key to happiness. In my life I have known many people who were wealthy but they certainly weren’t happy and some of the happiest folk I have known were certainly not rich.
There was an excellent speaker called Phillip Milburn who spoke on "Music For Happiness" He explained to us that it is natural that we sing when we are happy as an expression of how we feel. However, he pointed out and demonstrated to us how, when we are not happy, when we are depressed and feeling very low, singing can make us feel much better. He had us doing exercises making all kinds of strange sounds and walking around the room making them to each other, which I managed to do even with my weak legs. The thing which Phillip managed prove to us was that music has a tremendous power to make us feel good.
However, music is only one the things this fabulous group encourage people to do to increase their happiness. There is a set of principles which they suggest people do to feel happier. Amongst these are: helping other people, learning new things, having goals to look forward too and being comfortable with who you are.
  In a world where so many folk have increasing numbers numbers of people with conditions such as depression and  anxiety it seems only natural to me that taking positive steps to increase out happiness levels can help to improve the condition whatever it be.