Here's an interesting article about the keys to happiness and why it has little to do with wealth. I particularly like Abraham Lincoln's take: "Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be." The article dances around the issue of faith and service to God, but as a Christian I'm of course convinced that those are integral components as well.
Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California at Riverside has discovered that the road toward a more satisfying and meaningful life involves a recipe repeated in schools, churches and synagogues. Make lists of things for which you're grateful in your life, practice random acts of kindness, forgive your enemies, notice life's small pleasures, take care of your health, practice positive thinking, and invest time and energy into friendships and family.The happiest people have strong friendships, says Ed Diener, a psychologist University of Illinois. Interestingly his research finds that most people are slightly to moderately happy, not unhappy.
And that's one of the reasons I'm nervous about moving to St. Louis... I don't always make friends easily, but I know that my happiness depends on it.
Lethargy holds many people back from doing the things that lead to happiness.Easterbrook, also a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institute, goes back to Freud, who theorized that unhappiness is a default condition because it takes less effort to be unhappy than to be happy.
"If you are looking for something to complain about, you are absolutely certain to find it," Easterbrook told LiveScience. "It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don't make it. Most people take the path of least resistance. Far too many people today don't make the steps to make their life more fulfilling one."
As for Abe Lincoln, I agree, which is why I have little patience for people who are always complaining about unhappiness. Sure, bad stuff happens to everyone, but you can't let your happiness depend on your circumstances. Even though I'm a cynic, I'm a resigned cynic, which means I don't expect much from the world and I'm rarely disappointed. I think some of the most unhappy people I know are idealists who are constantly frustrated that reality will never be what they think it should.
Hmm, if you're a 'resigned cynic', then I think I might be something like a 'resigned idealist'. Sounds almost like an oxymoron, I know, but bear with me.
The frustrated idealists to which you refer are only a particular class of idealist, maybe 'optimistic idealists'. Optimistic idealists think it is possible to actually make the world into some ideal place. I, on the other hand, am a 'resigned idealist' because I don't expect much from the world, ever (i.e. I am resigned to the fact that the world is selfish, unforgiving, and sinful by nature), but, at the same time, I want to act as unselfishly (idealistically?) as possible, despite the fact that the world will try to take advantage of me for it. That is, I want to live as though the world IS the way it SHOULD be, even though I know it never will be, and I'm resigned to that...
The alternative is to act as selfishly out of fear of the world, which seems misguided and inexcusable.
maybe 'realist idealist' is more apt which is where I think I am as well. As a Christian, I know the ideal and will do my part to make it so but I also understand that this isn't possible yet for the entire world. Not everyone feels the same nor will they ever and as such, I prepare for bad things to occur, from the little stuff such as rudeness to the large stuff such as catastrophes. I, like all people, am fallable but I still strive for the ideal.
I like Nicholas's concept of a "resigned idealist," but with a slight twist: take the world as it is, don't live as though the world were the way it should be. At the same time, keep your ideals, while recognizing that they are ideals, and therefore can never be realized in full, almost by definition. The real problem isn't with idealists in general, but with those particular idealists who have deluded themselves into thinking they are realists.
Now that I think about it, I can see that my choice of words was poor. By saying "I want to live as though the world IS [sic] the way it SHOULD be," I didn't mean to say that I would want to act naively as though everything were hunky-dory, in denial of the truth. What I *really* meant was that I would not want to use the irreversible and natural selfishness of 'the world' as an excuse to be selfish myself. I would want to 'do good' without fear of the personal consequences a cruel world might impose, where goodness is often penalized or exploited.
Of course, as a resigned idealist who recognizes the basic evil of the world, it is my duty to prevent my attempts at goodness from being exploited by others toward evil ends, to the extent possible... but I think that duty is rolled up in the overall effort to 'do good.'
The point about friends seemed to be the most important part of the post. Note the clear indicator of what it takes. TIME! Invest a bunch of time in one friend. Men need something in common. Best is a sport or game, but it can be politics (join the local Young Republicans.)
Then invest some additional time in a couple of good friends. Nice if they are all into something together.
Remember. Almost all men are very deficient in this area, especially married men. It takes serious effort.
I disagree with the statement in the post that happiness depends on having friends. On the contrary, I believe happiness depends solely on your own feeling of self-worth and accomplishment. I suppose that if being popular fulfills someone, then it may be key to their happiness. But overall, basing your happiness on how many people buy you Christmas presents is shallow.
But perhaps I am the minority; I enjoy being alone and tend to avoid people when I can.
We cannot be happy unless we know what unhappyness is.
Life is not a static place.
Living means changing - hopefully with the result that improvement is linked to this change.
With happy - and sometimes not so happy greetings from a fine artist.
DeoDuce, "having friends" and "being popular" are not the same things. I think RK is referring to having close friends (independent of number - probably no more than a handful) rather than having many friends (independent of the depth of the relationship - probably not very deep).
Personally, I think happiness is about realizing that most things in life are not really that important, and that most things in life are beyond one's control. This allows one to stop worrying too much, and to selectively focus one's efforts into the few things that bring most happiness.
People today (especially young folks in the US) seem to think that a page-long list of things is worth worrying about. I think most older people have realized this is not the case. Many young kids probably realize this too but are discouraged from feeling that way by the pressure everyone puts on them.
I say the default position is not being unhappy, but being content. To go from "content" to happy takes effort, and one becomes unhappy when that effort is not well targeted.
Bernardo: you think contentment is the default?? That seems almost exactly wrong. I've met very few people who even understand contentment, much less experience it directly.