It is heard throughout the season - - the hopes for and the wishes offered to others to “have a happy holiday” or for a “Merry Christmas”. It is helpful to reflect on what composes a joyful experience of this holiday season. By understanding what creates a general sense of happiness, there are clues on what elements in the holiday season will facilitate a truly Happy Holiday.
What produces happiness is somewhat subjective to an individual, yet the discipline of positive psychology has determined that many underlying determinants of happiness are consistent. A large influence in level of happiness is personality. General temperament and outlook on life are key factors. These factors include optimism and resiliency which can be nurtured and developed over time, leading to an improved overall sense of happiness.
For some when they consider happiness, they often think about things that bring them pleasure. Food, possessions, or sex often are mentioned when people are asked about what brings happiness. However, research conducted by positive psychologists has determined that often these bring temporary pleasure but are not the core of deep joy. True happiness has been found to be more connected to having things in life that are both pleasurable and meaningful.
Humans are a social species, and social interaction is crucial. Healthy relationships are important in an overall sense of happiness and fulfillment in life. An interesting statistic is that people who describe themselves as very happy watch 20% less television than unhappy people. TV seems to be a short-term pleasure, but humans crave connection; and while a distraction, TV offers little opportunities for meaningful interpersonal interaction which is crucial to life satisfaction.
One of the most highly rated predictors of happiness is being in love. Additionally, while all marriages are imperfect and often complained about; married men and women are generally happier than people who are single or divorced. It may be that marriage contributes to happiness or that happiness causes marital satisfaction. Whatever comes first, people who are happier tend to have better intimate relationships and more stable marriages.
Money does little to make us happier once basic needs are met, but how someone spends money can affect happiness level. Using money to buy experiences such as a vacation or outing has been shown to bring far more joy than a new toy. Additionally, using money to do good and help others brings higher levels of happiness than funding fun activities. This suggests that spending money on charity contributes more to happiness than the same amount of cash spent on oneself.
Research confirms the connection between faith and happiness. Religion and spirituality can give a sense of purpose and meaning in life, provide a connection to a caring, supportive community, and offer a sense of comfort. Generally, people of faith express greater levels of happiness.
In the rush to do it all, the importance and meaning of this holiday season can be forgotten. There is more happiness in a holiday season when relationships are focal, religious expressions are nurtured and less when spending money and gift giving are the predominate elements of the experience. The materialistic features of Christmas celebrations may undermine joy, while family, social, and spiritual activities may create the most satisfying holiday memories.
During this season - - at least once a day - - stop the endless progression of doing the next essential task towards creating the perfect holiday and do something that brings joy - - something meaningful that make the holidays special for you and your family.
“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It can without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ‘till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
~Dr. Seuss
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
How Envy Impacts Happiness and Joy
While some may use the words interchangeably, depression is different from unhappiness. Clinical depression is a serious mental health issue which involves feelings of sadness, hopelessness and helplessness and impacts the ability to successfully accomplish routine tasks of daily living. While clinical depression is serious, it is treatable. Unhappiness is a feeling state which all of us have experienced at times in life. It may involve sadness, disappointment and anxiety. Without doubt, the most unhappy people in life are those filled with envy. Envy compromises dreams and steals joy. It makes us focus on what we don’t have, rather than what we have. It leads to a build up of resentment and strife.
Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation. It is felt when there is a perception that other people are much luckier, smarter, more attractive, and better. Historically considered one of the seven deadly sins (and in two the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament), envy is a “state in which the desired advantage enjoyed by another person or group of people causes a person to feel a painful blend of inferiority, hostility and resentment,” (Psychological Bulletin, 2007).
Some degree of envy toward those that have more is normal human nature. However, when there is a shift from “I wish I had what you have” to “I wish you did not have what you have”; there is ill will, and envy has become a destructive emotion. This level of envy where there is unhappiness at the good fortune of others can be harmful both mentally and physically. Medieval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Charity rejoices in our neighbor’s good, while envy grieves over it.” Deeply or pathologically envious people tend to feel chronically hostile, resentful and angry. They are less likely to feel grateful, and are unpleasant to be around.
Underlying feelings of inferiority are often the roots of deep envy. When we feel inferior, we see other people as being somehow larger and better than us. We long to be like them, but we tell ourselves that we can’t. A feeling of despair, disgust, envy and longing develops along with anger and resentment. If we value ourselves, when life goes well we feel happy and secure, and when life goes badly we assure ourselves that we’ll be able to cope. If we don’t value ourselves, we never feel happy and secure, even when everything goes well.
Babies are born with boundless unselfconscious confidence; without a sense of inferiority or superiority. As a child grows, the messages from parents, other adults, siblings and peers determine the conclusions about personal worth and value and therefore determine self esteem.
Dr. Richard Smith and Dr. Sun Hee Kim, from the University of Kentucky recently published a comprehensive article describing the nature of envy as well as the negative effects it can have on mental and physical health. Drs. Smith and Kim suggest learning to recognize feelings of envy and challenge them with cognitive techniques, including: reminders of the negative impact of envious thoughts; distracting from the negative thoughts by refocusing on other more pleasant thoughts, memories, or plans; and finally a process of reminders of our own positive qualities and advantages.
Understanding and challenging underlying feelings of inferiority is important. No one is superior, no one is inferior, and everybody is ordinary. No one escapes the pain of living and we all suffer disappointment, loss, failure and death. We all have to try to cope with life as best we can. It is important to learn to celebrate other people’s success, knowing that no one – other than you - can be good at being you. One way or another, we’re all ridiculous and we’re all important. Envying others prevents truly valuing our own life.
Envy is the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation. It is felt when there is a perception that other people are much luckier, smarter, more attractive, and better. Historically considered one of the seven deadly sins (and in two the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament), envy is a “state in which the desired advantage enjoyed by another person or group of people causes a person to feel a painful blend of inferiority, hostility and resentment,” (Psychological Bulletin, 2007).
Some degree of envy toward those that have more is normal human nature. However, when there is a shift from “I wish I had what you have” to “I wish you did not have what you have”; there is ill will, and envy has become a destructive emotion. This level of envy where there is unhappiness at the good fortune of others can be harmful both mentally and physically. Medieval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Charity rejoices in our neighbor’s good, while envy grieves over it.” Deeply or pathologically envious people tend to feel chronically hostile, resentful and angry. They are less likely to feel grateful, and are unpleasant to be around.
Underlying feelings of inferiority are often the roots of deep envy. When we feel inferior, we see other people as being somehow larger and better than us. We long to be like them, but we tell ourselves that we can’t. A feeling of despair, disgust, envy and longing develops along with anger and resentment. If we value ourselves, when life goes well we feel happy and secure, and when life goes badly we assure ourselves that we’ll be able to cope. If we don’t value ourselves, we never feel happy and secure, even when everything goes well.
Babies are born with boundless unselfconscious confidence; without a sense of inferiority or superiority. As a child grows, the messages from parents, other adults, siblings and peers determine the conclusions about personal worth and value and therefore determine self esteem.
Dr. Richard Smith and Dr. Sun Hee Kim, from the University of Kentucky recently published a comprehensive article describing the nature of envy as well as the negative effects it can have on mental and physical health. Drs. Smith and Kim suggest learning to recognize feelings of envy and challenge them with cognitive techniques, including: reminders of the negative impact of envious thoughts; distracting from the negative thoughts by refocusing on other more pleasant thoughts, memories, or plans; and finally a process of reminders of our own positive qualities and advantages.
Understanding and challenging underlying feelings of inferiority is important. No one is superior, no one is inferior, and everybody is ordinary. No one escapes the pain of living and we all suffer disappointment, loss, failure and death. We all have to try to cope with life as best we can. It is important to learn to celebrate other people’s success, knowing that no one – other than you - can be good at being you. One way or another, we’re all ridiculous and we’re all important. Envying others prevents truly valuing our own life.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Happiness
Achieving happiness is likely the most universally common goal. While there are significant subjective definitions of what happiness really is, we all want to be happy. People around the world value happiness above intelligence, success and even material wealth. This makes sense because happiness is associated with good personal relationships, better jobs, more success and higher income.
The advice of how to have a happy life comes from many sources. There are recommendations from the ancient Greeks, the ancient Chinese, 19th Century German philosophers and of course shelves of self-help books in any bookstores.
The psychological literature clearly shows there is a strong relationship between success and happiness. However affluence produces rapidly diminishing returns on happiness.
Psychologists have in the past 10 years begun to investigate the questions about what causes human happiness how to enhance this sense of wellbeing. The results of this research show first off that almost all humans are surprisingly happy and 90% of Americans report themselves to be “very happy” or “fairly happy”. There are individual differences in the level of happiness and these differences are stable across the lifespan. Another interesting finding in the research on happiness in that major life events that we would expect to effect happiness over the long term (winning the lottery, death of a loved one) only affect it for about six months to a year.
Research suggests that the contributions to our happiness are 50% a stable “set point” of overall sense of well being – this is largely determined by our overall temperament which is determined by genetics. Not much we can do about those issues. 10% of a sense of happiness is related to life circumstances such as how much money we have, our education level, and age. We have some possibility to change our life circumstances and these factors do matter, but these changes make a small contribution to happiness. However 40% of happiness is determined by our day-to- day activities. Research has confirmed that enjoyable activities have more potential for making us happy than improvements in our circumstances. People tend to place much more importance on their life circumstances to the detriment of happiness enhancing behaviors and everyday pleasurable activities.
Three activities that psychologist have investigated that enhance happiness are 1) visualizing you best self and imagining your life in the future where goals have been met; 2) helping other with acts of kindness has been found to increase a sense of well-being by 40%; and 3) practicing gratitude.
In addition to these guidelines research has shown the impact of daily pleasurable activities on happiness. Having fun improves our sense of well-being. The activity choices should have three characteristics: 1) They should fit our needs and our personalities (sky diving is NOT for everyone). 2) The content should vary (new experiences are especially helpful because the amount of pleasure we can get from the same experienced tails off with repetition). 3) The timing should vary.
We live in a society of materialism, where objects are valued way beyond their possible contribution to happiness. Happiness research has determined that experiences give more pleasure than material purchases. This difference is for several reasons. Experiences create memories which improve with time – possessions don’t. It is hard to compare our own experiences with those of other people. However comparing possessions is easy. Pleasure diminishes with unfavorable comparison.
Achieving happiness is a lifetime goal and pursuit. Doing what brings YOU the most meaning and contentment to your life over the long run will bring happiness. Benjamin Spock wrote “Happiness is mostly a by-product of doing what makes us feel fulfilled.”
The advice of how to have a happy life comes from many sources. There are recommendations from the ancient Greeks, the ancient Chinese, 19th Century German philosophers and of course shelves of self-help books in any bookstores.
The psychological literature clearly shows there is a strong relationship between success and happiness. However affluence produces rapidly diminishing returns on happiness.
Psychologists have in the past 10 years begun to investigate the questions about what causes human happiness how to enhance this sense of wellbeing. The results of this research show first off that almost all humans are surprisingly happy and 90% of Americans report themselves to be “very happy” or “fairly happy”. There are individual differences in the level of happiness and these differences are stable across the lifespan. Another interesting finding in the research on happiness in that major life events that we would expect to effect happiness over the long term (winning the lottery, death of a loved one) only affect it for about six months to a year.
Research suggests that the contributions to our happiness are 50% a stable “set point” of overall sense of well being – this is largely determined by our overall temperament which is determined by genetics. Not much we can do about those issues. 10% of a sense of happiness is related to life circumstances such as how much money we have, our education level, and age. We have some possibility to change our life circumstances and these factors do matter, but these changes make a small contribution to happiness. However 40% of happiness is determined by our day-to- day activities. Research has confirmed that enjoyable activities have more potential for making us happy than improvements in our circumstances. People tend to place much more importance on their life circumstances to the detriment of happiness enhancing behaviors and everyday pleasurable activities.
Three activities that psychologist have investigated that enhance happiness are 1) visualizing you best self and imagining your life in the future where goals have been met; 2) helping other with acts of kindness has been found to increase a sense of well-being by 40%; and 3) practicing gratitude.
In addition to these guidelines research has shown the impact of daily pleasurable activities on happiness. Having fun improves our sense of well-being. The activity choices should have three characteristics: 1) They should fit our needs and our personalities (sky diving is NOT for everyone). 2) The content should vary (new experiences are especially helpful because the amount of pleasure we can get from the same experienced tails off with repetition). 3) The timing should vary.
We live in a society of materialism, where objects are valued way beyond their possible contribution to happiness. Happiness research has determined that experiences give more pleasure than material purchases. This difference is for several reasons. Experiences create memories which improve with time – possessions don’t. It is hard to compare our own experiences with those of other people. However comparing possessions is easy. Pleasure diminishes with unfavorable comparison.
Achieving happiness is a lifetime goal and pursuit. Doing what brings YOU the most meaning and contentment to your life over the long run will bring happiness. Benjamin Spock wrote “Happiness is mostly a by-product of doing what makes us feel fulfilled.”
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