By Arlene Matthews Uhl. 2008.
Table of Contents
1. What Happiness Is…And Isn’t
2. A Brief history of Happiness
3. The New Science of Happiness
4. Why Character is Crucial
5. Sustaining Strengths
6. Altruism: the Golden Rule
7. Laughing Your Way to Happiness
8. Power of Optimism
9. An Attitude of Gratitude
10. Positively Playful
11. The Happy Path of Spiritual Seeking
12. When Work Feels Like Play
13. Positivity and Productivity
14. Happy Workplaces and Work-Life Balance
15. Wedded Bliss?
16. Positive Parenting
17. The Friendship Factor
18. Exercise for Happiness
19. Sublime Sleep
20. Meditation and Positive Emotion
21. Happiness, Hope, and Healing
22. Happiness, Aging, and Longevity
Appendices
D. Volunteer Opportunities
Chapter 1: What Happiness Is…And Isn’t
What exactly does it take to make you content in the present, at peace with the past, and hopeful about the future?
Why, in a society were so many of us spend so much time and energy seeking pleasure and attempting to avoid pain, are so many of us depressed, anxious, pessimistic, and just plain confused?
The Problem with Pleasure
To begin with, there is a significant fundamental difference between happiness and pleasure. Pleasure is a fleeting feeling that comes from external circumstance: a sumptuous dinner, a relaxing massage, beautiful surroundings, and so on. Pleasure involves nice things happening to us–things that have to do with sating or exciting the senses. Pleasurable experiences can certainly give us momentary positive feelings, but pleasure-based happiness does not last long–unless you try to organize all your days around pleasure, but that in itself presents other problems.
Our brain cells are wired to respond to novel events. After a while, repeated events or ever-present circumstances become background noise to which we barely react. This process, known as orientation and habituation, begins when we are infants and is part of the way we learn about the world.
The term “destination addiction”, meaning a preoccupation with finding satisfaction “tomorrow” was coined by Dr. Robert Holden, founder of the United Kingdom’s Happiness Project–a research and training Institute. He defines it succinctly as “living in the not now.”
But on a hierarchy of happiness, pleasure does not command the top slot. How could it? Anything dependent on circumstance can disappear in an instant, because circumstances are always changing.
Pleasure that comes as a surprise can often produce a more positive feeling than one we’ve grown used to or planned for. So although planning for pleasure is fine, stay open to spontaneity. Who knows what pleasure waits around the next corner?
When More Is Less
The hedonic treadmill is the phenomena of continual dissatisfaction with the consumption of material goods. As individuals earn more money, they take their current standard of living for granted while their aspirations ratchet up. They continually aspire to the next level, which will again fail to satisfy.
Can someone else make us happy?
Seeing friends. Making it a priority to spend quality time with people you like is its own reward, even if it means spending a little less time working.
Being more generous. You can up your happiness quotient by donating some of your money for philanthropic causes. Giving to others is as beneficial to us as it is to those who wait get some donating money to worthy causes a win-win situation.
Long-term happiness does not result so much from falling in love as from rising in love. When we act in a loving way toward someone, we are ultimately more fulfilled when did we are when we dwell on the fact that we are desired and admire though that certainly isn’t about that.
Yoga close loss a few stresses that the attainment of happiness involves the discipline. As Patanjali said, we are apt to find fulfillment when we are inspired by “some great purpose, some extraordinary project.”
Chapter 3: The New Science of Happiness
Some psychologists estimate that more than 90% of research into promotion has concentrated on various forms of mental illness such as depression and anxiety. However, during the last few years more than 3000 scientific papers explored the benefits and impacts of happiness. Many of these are chronicled on the world database of happiness.
When we become familiar with our key strengths, we can evening contemplate restructuring our lives so that we use those characteristics more and more. We may find ourselves creating new opportunities in our careers, expanding our social lives, and enhancing our family lives. In addition, we may use the strengths to help others. The more we use our positive traits, the more they develop. Like a set of well-flexed muscles, they grow ever more powerful.
Chapter 12: When Work Feels like Play
Research shows that in many cases, capitalizing on strengths is a far more effective route to success than trying to shore up weaknesses.
Chapter 14. Happy Workplaces and Work-Life Balance
Commuting: The Happiness Crusher
Yet a growing body of evidence shows incontrovertibly that people with long journeys to
Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist, calls commuting “a robust predictor of social isolation,” and notes that social isolation directly causes unhappiness. Putnam has even quantified the negative; every 10 minutes of commuting, he says, result in 10 percent fewer social connections.
Putnam advises each person who will potentially commute to work to visualize a triangle comprising where they sleep, where they work, and where they shop and socialize. In many American cities, you can spend an hour or two traveling along each side of that triangle. However, the smaller the triangle, the happier the person. The happiest people of all would be able to walk everywhere.
Chapter 15: Wedded Bliss?
In the United States, 95% of the adult population marries at some point. Of married adults, 40% call themselves “very happy,” whereas only 23% of never-married adults describe themselves this way.
A formula for creating romance has actually been created in the lab. Psychologist Arthur Arun, who has studied why people fall in love, asked subjects to choose a total stranger, spend half an hour sharing intimate life details with that person, and then spend four minutes gazing into their eyes. Many of his couples felt deeply attracted after those 34 minutes.