10 Ways To Lead A Happier Life According To Pope Francis

While being interviewed by primarily Catholic Argentina's Viva weekly magazine, Pope Francis listed 10 ways to lead a happier life. Prior to being selected as the Catholic pope in 2013, Pope Francis was going by his birth name, Jorge Maria Bergoglio, while he was a cardinal and the archbishop of Buenos Aires. As such, he sometimes clashed with Argentina's political leaders. But his selection to Rome's papal seat has inspired
the almost 77 percent Catholic population of Argentina.

Pope Francis certainly appears more genuinely happy at
times than his predecessor Pope Benedict, so his personal
choices of 10 ways to live a happy life even impresse this
former Catholic who has gone Eastern spiritual for the past
few decades.

(1) Don't proselytize; respect others' beliefs: This may be
his most controversial comment. Out of the world's 2
billion or so Christians, half are Catholic. The Catholic
Church helped overrun South America and Mexico as well as
sections of Canada using what worked in early Middle
Ages Europe, convert or die a gruesome death. In between
those extremes, there was a bit of slavery. Then, the
Christians who had broken away from the Vatican and colonized what is now the USA carried on in similar, though not quite as overtly brutal, fashion. In other words, most of Christianity has a history of expansion through force. So dropping even trying to convince others of converting civilly is major.

(2) Live and let live: This makes "don't proselytize" a
corollary. If you live and let live, you won't insist that
everyone else thinks and worships like you. Pope Francis mentioned that this should be one's guiding principal in life. Good idea.

(3) Be giving of yourself to
others: Pope Francis cautioned
that, "if you withdraw into yourself, you run the risk of
becoming egocentric. And stagnant water becomes
putrid."

(4) Respect and take care of nature: He warned that
harming the environment by exploiting nature has created
humanity's biggest challenge, adding, "I think a question
that we're not asking ourselves is: 'Isn't humanity
committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical
use of nature?'"

(5) Proceed calmly in life: This produces the next Papal tip
as a corollary.

(6) Have a healthy sense of leisure: He warned how
"consumerism has brought us anxiety," then advised
turning off the TV while eating and for families to get
together with their children without TV also.

(7) Sundays are for holidays: He said that workers should
have Sundays off to be with families. He didn't mention
what young Catholic children were told circa 1950 — if
you miss mass, it's a mortal sin and you risk going to Hell
if you die before confessing to a priest. Ah, yes, that was
real back then!

(8) Find innovative ways to create dignified jobs for
young people. "'We need to be creative with young
people. If they have no opportunities they will get into
drugs' and be more vulnerable to suicide," he said, as
reported in a translation by the Catholic News Service.
Yes, but there have been a few well-off creative folks of
note doing the drug-suicide scene lately. So, well paid
creative energy doesn't necessarily guarantee not getting hooked on hard drugs or booze. Marijuana is not a hard drug, incidentally, though the DEA thinks otherwise.

(9) Stop being negative: "Needing to talk badly about
others indicates low self-esteem," the Pope said. "Letting go of negative things quickly is healthy."

(10) Work for peace : "We are living in a time of many
wars," he said, and "the call for peace must be shouted.
Peace sometimes gives the impression of being quiet, but it is never quiet, peace is always proactive." Well, if everyone from the lowest station in life to the
highest practiced the other nine tips, there might not be
any need for aggressive peacemaking . Peace would
become a natural state of affairs.