Marilyn Tam - The Happiness Choice: The Five Decisions That Will Take You From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

Praise for The Happiness Choice

As our world seems to move faster, and becomes more impatient and surely complicated, Marilyn Tam offers a soothing, healing perspective on how we can deal with our lives. This thoughtful book to me is all about learning to view the present in a straightforward manner that empowers and energizes our dreams and talents. Healthy, heartfelt wisdom is to be found here.

Andrew Davis,
Academy Awardnominated film director

Marilyn Tam offers straightforward, usable advice on how to achieve balance in your life. Happiness in life is a choice, and it is within reach. Marilyn's unique background, her experiences, and her success have given her valuable insights into what it takes to achieve happiness in life. The resources she shares in this book will help you to focus on your life's purpose, prioritize what is truly important, be healthy, and achieve dynamic balance and happiness.

W. Kenneth Yancey Jr.,
CEO, SCORE Association, resource partner to the U.S. Small Business Administration

Your book hit me at the heart. This book is meant for me. This is going to be my textbook to find my life purpose for the rest of my life. It's not too late even at 65 years old. I can rebuild my relationship with my family and I can find my life purpose. A more wonderful life is waiting for me.

Shoji Tatsuno, Senior Vice President,
Marubeni America Corporation, retired

Marilyn Tam has done a tremendous service by encouraging us to take a close look at five decisions that illuminate the path of relative importance of our life's robust achievements and propel us to higher levels of meaningful impact and value to the world. This is a must read about the process of editing life as a choice and function to achieving balance.

Jovita Carranza,
former Vice President for Air Operations,
UPS, and Deputy Administrator,
U.S. Small Business Administration

Marilyn Tam knows that happiness is a door you open from within. Treasure The Happiness Choice and let Marilyn help you find your key and open that door.

Mark Albion, Faculty Founder of Net Impact,
co-founder of More Than Money Careers,
New York Times best-selling author

The themes that Marilyn writes about so poignantly are very close to my heart. Having worked through my own personal tragedies to succeed in work and life, I can attest to the power of this life-changing book. Not only does Marilyn share her story, but she gives you a road map you can follow to create the life you really want.

Libby Gill,
Executive Coach and author of You Unstuck and Traveling Hopefully

What is happiness? There are too many ideas, for various reasons and for different people. No straightforward how-to book can be achieved. But from time to time, new lights are to be gleaned, with insightful suggestions to be considered. Marilyn Tam's new book combines multiple dimensions of these possibilities. May happiness embrace you along the Way, all the Way.

Chungliang Al Huang, President-Director,
Living Tao FoundationLan Ting Institute;
author, Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain:
The Essence of Tai Ji; co-author with Alan Watts,
Tao: The Watercourse Way; with Jerry Lynch,
Thinking Body, Dancing Mind

Cover design: Paul McCartney

Copyright 2013 by Marilyn Tam. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions .

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with the respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising here from.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Tam, Marilyn.

The happiness choice: the 5 decisions that will take you from where you are to where you want to be / Marilyn Tam.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-49316-8 (cloth); 978-1-118-52695-8 (ebk);

ISBN 978-1-118-52670-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-52660-6 (ebk)

1. Happiness. 2. Self-realization. 3. Conduct of life. I. Title.

BF575.H27T36 2013

158.1dc23

2012041498

Foreword

Looking for Happiness in All the Right Places

What we need for our happiness is often close at hand, if we knew but how to seek for it.

Nathaniel Hawthorne,
American Note-Books, August 22, 1837

When I was in high school, seeking happiness through my studies, and, well, okaythrough the tortured pursuit of loveI read a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne that has stuck with me for half a century. It is titled The Birthmark .

The story is an allegory about looking for happiness in all the wrong places. Alymer, a great scientist, loves his magnificently beautiful wife Georgina passionately. But she has a small flaw, a scarlet birthmark on her cheek in the shape of a tiny hand. Obsessed with the imperfection, Alymer devotes himself to removing it. After considerable labor he invents a potion, which his dutiful wife swallows to very ill effect.

Hawthorne describes her death in an unforgettable way: The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmarkthat sole token of human imperfectionfaded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight.

Being a young romantic when I read the story, Georgina's swooning form left an indelible impression on my psyche. It symbolized the foolishness of thinking that if only we were perfect, or someone else were perfect, or life was fair then we would be happy. I'll be happy when... is the illusion that stands between us and the wholehearted act of engaging fully with life, moment by moment, here and now. It is that deep engagementwhether through love, work, service, or simply wandering through the meadows and feeling the warmth of the sun that creates the variety of emotional states that we call happiness.