I found my happy place today. Phew. I thought I lost it for a while. I'm happy to say that I am still master of my domain, or is that, domain-es. I'm very aware that I am responsible for my own happiness. I'm not waiting for anyone or anything to do that for me. I believe that we set ourselves up to fail in the happiness department if we set our expectations too high. I'm not saying don't work towards attaining your dreams, I'm suggesting to make them realistic. And hey, being realistic is whatever that means to you.
A British researcher merged dozens of statistical metrics to rank nations on the elusive notion of contentment, as written by Marina Kamenev in Business Week. The article goes on to say that heading up the list of the world's happiest nation is .... wait for it ... Denmark. While happiness is subjective, the study focused on life satisfaction rather than brief emotional states.
Surprisingly, being wealthy doesn't necessarily make you happy. In Marilyn Elias article she states that; Psychologists now know that the happiest people surround themselves with family and friends, they don't care about keeping up with the Joneses, and most importantly they forgive easily. Psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman, author of the book, Authentic Happiness are already starting to see why some people are happy while others are not: The happiest people spend the least amount of time alone. They pursue personal growth and intimacy; they judge themselves by their own yardsticks, never against what others do or have.
Although this may sound rather obvious, then why are a disproportionate number of people not happy? Happiness has become an increasingly important topic of research.
So what does this all mean? Figure out what really makes you happy. Take some time and write a list. Then when that's done, figure out how to spend more time doing it. Again, obvious, yes. But if you look at the results of the studies, we generally are terrible at spending the most time on things that bring us the most joy. Certainly the realities of life will dictate how we spend much of our time, but as the Princeton studies have shown many of us do more of the things that we don't like just to be able to buy things that don't bring us happiness.
Food for thought. Now bite into that apple!
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You would think that happiness comes easy for most people, but alas it is something that is a struggle for a lot of people. I myself have to work at to maintain it, but I now know that a constant state of joy is key. Joy comes from acceptance of things as is. When you are joyful happiness seems to follow. Now that I know that it is still does not come natural yet, so thank you for the reminder to surround myself with good people and do things that I love to do. It is easy to let your to do list steal your joy if you ignore your happiness.
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