What is Happiness?

Before we actually decide to cultivate happiness in our daily lives and existence, it is important to understand what happiness truly means. Of course, it is very difficult to come up with any single and universally applicable definition of happiness, since happiness can manifest in different ways for different people, and is greatly influenced by social and cultural factors.

Definitions of Happiness

Yet, here are some general definitions of happiness coined over time…

…An emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfilment*

…a state involving positive emotions and life satisfaction

…happiness?is interchangeable with “subjective well-being,” which is typically measured by asking people about how satisfied they feel with their lives (evaluative), how much positive and negative emotion they tend to feel (affective), and their sense of meaning and purpose (eudaimonic). **

As suggested by ancient philosopher Aristotle, there are four levels of happiness: happiness from immediate gratification, from comparison and achievement, from making positive contributions, and from achieving fulfilment.

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Happiness – A Universal Goal

Aristotle also believed that happiness is the one human desire, and all other human desires exist as a way to obtain happiness.

Indeed, all that we do in our life, isn’t the ultimate aim to be happy? This does not translate to “feeling happy all the time”, in fact, happy people do experience all emotions across the spectrum, from fear to sadness to guilt to anger and other negative emotions. But the key differentiator between happy people and an unhappy people is that despite these negative emotions, happy people feel an umbrella sense of hope and optimism and a confidence of “being able to tackle what life throws at them, and feeling happy again”. Perhaps this is the key difference between a negative mental state and a happy mental state. This suggests, that happiness is not about a constant state of euphoria, but a balanced state of wellbeing.

Research by Brickman et al (1978)*** suggests that people who won the lottery, after the initial euphoria had died down, were no happier than people with spinal cord injuries. This says a lot about the pervasiveness of happiness as a basic need for the human collective ! And the need to keep striving for happiness in a methodical manner !

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Antithesis to Happiness

So does this mean that we can keep increasing our happiness quotient forever and forever ? Perhaps not, according to the Set Point Theory of Happiness, which presents an antithesis to the belief that we can keep getting happier. It states that we each have a fixed average level of happiness around which our day-to-day and moment-to-moment happiness varies. Indeed, genetics does play a significant role in many personality factors, sometimes as much as 50% of so (Lykken and Tellegen, 1996). Well, lets look at bright side of this statistic - that leaves us with another ~50% to actively work upon and positively impact our happiness levels!

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Signs of Happiness

Some key signs of happiness that psychologists look for when measuring and assessing happiness are**…

• Going with the flow and a willingness to take life as it comes
• Feeling like you are living the life you wanted
• Feeling that the conditions of your life are good
• Feeling that you have accomplished (or will accomplish) what you want in life
• Enjoying positive, healthy relationships with other people
• Feeling positive more than negative
• Feeling satisfied with your life
• Being open to new ideas and experiences
• Practicing self-care and treating yourself with kindness and compassion
• Feeling that you are living life with a sense of meaning and purpose
• Experiencing?gratitude
• Wanting to share your happiness and joy with others

We believe happiness is a state of mind derived from a micro view and a macro view -it stems from how one feel’s in the present moment, on a day-to-day basis; plus a general sense of wellbeing from a bird’s eye view of one’s life.

Happiness is a skill, which means no one is born with happiness, it can be developed, (or lost) basis one’s thoughts, behaviours and actions.

And above all,

Happiness is a choice, which means that planned and conscious actions to cultivate happiness can make all the difference essential to one’s wellbeing.

This choice is powerful, especially in today’s fast-paced world, where we seem to be constantly in the rat race, achieving the “next big thing”, in the quest for happiness. The entire construct of happiness, as we see it, is not extrinsic (fat paycheck, big house, flashy cars, surreal vacays etc.), but more intrinsic and “seeking inwards”. Happiness is an ingrained way of life, and now is the time to we urge everyone to make this conscious choice, to develop and hone happiness skills, for overall mental and emotional wellbeing

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Sources

*https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-happiness-4869755

**https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/happiness/definition

*** Happittude