What Makes You Happy
As Americans, we are promised the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence. Yet as I look around this country, there don’t seem to be a lot of happy people out there. We live in complex times and unfortunately, no one promised pursuing happiness would be easy, just as no one promised us life would be fair. How many people do you know that say they are happy?
While happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction. Our personal successes can make us happy. For many people having money makes them happy. Is being successful and having money the key to happiness? Research on positive psychology and happiness often defines a happy person as someone who experiences frequent positive emotions, such as joy, interest, and pride, and infrequent negative emotions, such as sadness, anxiety and anger. Some people say that their relationships with others make them happy, others not so much
Happiness is said to relate to life satisfaction, appreciation of life, and moments of pleasure, but overall, it has to do with the positive experience of emotions. Researchers seem to agree that no outside source can give us true happiness. This means that we must find happiness on our own and we can’t really give it to anyone else.
Happiness is harder to define than success. Is it a feeling, an activity, a state of well-being, harmony within, loving ourselves, a positive emotion, or a part of being successful? Happiness can be all of these. We can choose to be happy now, even if we haven’t been happy to this point.
What is keeping us from choosing to be happy? The answer is simple: we are keeping ourselves from being happy. Why are we doing this? When will we stop these thoughts? When will we choose to be happier?
There are no easy answers to these questions. Some people have spent years trying to figure out why they are unhappy. Feeling unhappy is one of the wounds we sustain in this journey through life, which typically occurs when we search for and depend on others to make us happy. It becomes more complex when the others we seek are not happy either. How can someone who isn’t happy make us happy? Only we can make ourselves happy. Each of us achieves happiness by allowing ourselves to become happy.
· Fortunately, there are qualities that are identified with happiness that we can use to view in our attempts to become happier. I will share some of those qualities for you now. show gratitude and kindness,
· live in the present (the now),
· find humor in life,
· are self-confident and have high self-esteem,
· are adaptable toward change,
· are optimistic and have a positive outlook,
· value intangibles more than material things,
· are curious,
· give and receive love,
· show acceptance to and are non-judgmental toward others,
· have a forgiving nature,
· are patient,
· are responsible for themselves,
· show humility,
· have a sense of life direction, and
· are accepting of their life condition.
Evidence showed that changing our approach to life with positive thoughts and completing positive activities increases happiness over time, i.e., happiness results by changing how we react to life. In other words, choosing our responses to people, places, and things can change our life.
Learning how to react positively to life challenges can be developed and sustained as a habit over time. If we desire to be happier than we are right now, we become so by thinking and then acting or reacting more positively to events in life. At first, this takes effort to accomplish, but each time we react in a positive manner, it gets easier. We can begin with new activities for enjoyment, looking for new ways to challenge ourselves in completing them, and concentrating on doing them for joy rather than for material success.
Happiness is not attained by becoming rich, famous, or successful, or by acquiring material objects, but by setting realizable goals in activities we value and by establishing and realizing our own value through positive actions toward ourselves and others. The authors report findings from this and other studies show that older people tend to be happier than their younger compatriots. As people select more enjoyable and self-fulfilling goals their level of happiness improves. By learning to change our perceptions and adopt a more positive way of thinking, we become happier.
As always, more information is available in “Aging Optimally: Essential Tools for Healing Body, Mind, and Spirit.”