I was looking at my doctor’s website yesterday and in particular the statistics on what they have treated. Ten per cent of patients are treated for depression. How many more people are not yet at the stage of clinical depression, but are very unhappy?
Are you happy? If not, what can you do about it. Positive psychology believes that it has the answer to happiness. Research has shown that 40% of happiness is under your conscious control. The other 60% is due to our circumstances, where you live, the family that you are bought up in and so on.
Happiness has two main components. You can asses yours by asking yourself the following questions:
- How satisfied are you overall with your life and are you progressing in your life goals?
- How often do you feel positive emotions and how often do you feel negative emotions?
- Image via Wikipedia
Can You Predict Positive Personality Traits?
One positive personality trait that we all want is happiness. You think that it would be easy to predict what makes you happy and what you need in your life in order to feel more positive.
One of the problems is one of expectation. I once was invited to attend a birthday meal at a a new restaurant. The woman whose birthday it was was incredibly excited about the prospect of going for a Thai meal with her friends.
We got there and it was a very good restaurant. The birthday woman ordered a meal which had a Thai name. Her smile faded when she took the first mouth full. The dish was heavily flavoured with hot chili, and she hated chili (most Thai food features chili!)
For her the evening was spoilt. I, on the the other hand who loves chili, had a great time eating good food and being with friends.
The problem with my friend was that she had huge expectations about the meal and how happy it would make her – and these expectations were not met.
Can you predict how happy you would be?
- Image via Wikipedia
Can movies cure anxiety symptoms?
Some people believe that we live in a dark time and this has been reflected in the most popular sci fi movies and TV series that we watch. Films such as Watchmen, Lord of The Rings, and TV series like Battlestar Gallatica are all about dark times and threats from hostile forces. Even the recent Star Wars movies have been grim and not exactly a bundle of laughs.
These films reflect anxiety symptoms bought about through the collapsing financial system and terrorist threats. These anxiety symptoms include:
- General insecurity
- Fear of walking the streets
- Not spending due to financial insecurity
- Trying to make life safe as possible
Is there a new trend in films starting that will help alleviate your anxiety symptoms and make you feel good again?
I once saw a documentary about the Ayatollah Khomeini.
In the course of the one hour documentary things I noticed about the Ayatollah were:
- He did not smile once
- He did not laugh once.
- He was unmarried
He landed in Iran where a large crowd greeted their new religious and political leader. He looked at them and still looked miserable. I do not trust a political or religious leader who never smiles.
Now, contrast this with Barack Obama who:
- smiles a lot
- laughs
- has a happy marriage
- looks happy
It is not possible to find happiness unless you have a sense of humor.
Is there a link between humor and a successful relationship? If you want a long-lasting and loving relationship, do you look for someone with a sense of humor?
Is the pursuit of perfect how to find happiness?
In a new book, The Pursuit Of Perfect, Ben-Shahar identifies two ways of living, whose distinct patterns of behavior provide an important key to our understanding of success and self-fulfillment. They are the Perfectionist and the Optimalist, and there’s a little bit of both in you and me . . .
I once worked for a company whoose CEO was a perfectionist. He regarded excellence as not good enough. Perfection was what was expected. This resulted in many projects taking ten times as long as they needed to be as we became bogged down in the minute details in order to create this state of perfection. I came to the view that the insistence on perfection was holding back the growth of the company.
Employees lived in fear that their work, though excellent, was judged not good enough because it failed the test of perfection.
So what is the difference between an optimalist and a perfectionist and do any of them give a clue on how to find happiness?
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Many people believe that money makes you happy. Though there is little evidence that you can find happiness this way, there is a way that money can lead to happiness.
How often have you had thoughts such as:
- If only I could drive a fast sports car I would find happiness
- If only I had an extra $500 a week in my salary then I would be happy
- If only I won the lottery then I would be the happiest person I know
- If only my parents would give me some money now instead of after they die then this would make me happy
Nobel Prize winner in economics Daniel Kahneman says:
“The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory.
People exaggerate the contribution of income to happiness because they focus, in part , on conventional achievements when evaluating their life or the lives of others.”
However there is one way that money can make you happy.
Do you stop and feel gratitude for the things in your life?
Sonja Lyubomirsky, a Positive Psychologist did a study in which she asked her students:
“There are many things in our lives, both large and small, that we might be grateful about. Think back over events of the past week and write down up to five things that happened for which you are grateful or thankful.”
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
Positive Psychology is about authentic happiness. How popular is happiness? Last year 4000 books were published on happiness. In 2000 there were only 50. The course on Positive Psychology is the most popular class at Harvard University. These facts alone support the idea that happiness is very popular.But according to an article in Psycholgy Today:
“All is not necessarily well. According to some measures, as a nation we’ve grown sadder and more anxious during the same years that the happiness movement has flourished; perhaps that’s why we’ve eagerly bought up its offerings. It may be that college students sign up for positive psychology lessons in droves because a full 15 percent of them report being clinically depressed.”
Positive Psychology is the science of happiness. In order to improve happiness you need to look at hwre you are now. Are you happy? Some answers that you may give are:
- a little
- yes
- no
- a lot
- sometimes
- often
- seldom
and so on. The answers are a bit vague and subjective. Is there an objective way to measuring happiness?
If you ask a few people what would make them happy you will come up with a variety of answers. Most of these answers will involve external circumstances.
For example, the people you question may come up with answers similar to the following:
- I would be happier if I get a promotion at work
- If I meet the person of my dreams then I will be happy
- As soon as I leave my job I will be happy
- Winning a substantial amount on the lottery will really make a difference to my happiness
- If my football team wins the championship then I will be over the moon with delight
- A good shopping spree will make me happy
We are in a time of economic crisis. Savings are losing their value, stocks and shares are going down, businesses are closing down. Most people believe that money makes you happy, which means that losing money makes you unhappy.
Is there any evidence to support this belief? There has been quite a lot of research to show that money is not the key to happiness. James Fowler, an economic behaviorist at the University of California, Santa Barbara says that:
You want to be happy, but just what is happiness?
Is it having a smile on your face at all times and feeling happy and never feeling sad?
This is not what authentic happiness is. So what it it? Here are a few factors that contribute to happiness:
- Satisfaction with life. This is when you agree that your life is close to the ideal and that condiotions in ytour life arfe excellent.
- Optimism about the future – you are optimistic that things will work out fine.
- Sharing – you enjoy sharing with others
- Love – you love yourself and others.
- Gratitude – There is so much in your life to be thankful for
- Forgiveness – you are prepared to forgive and let go of those who transgress you
- Curiosity – you are curious about the world
