What Makes A Happy Person?

Article by
Aisling Grimley.

What is the secret to being a happy person? Theories abound. Below you will find some of the key findings of Leo Bormans who wrote "The World Book of Happiness". This book is the result of two years of research involving one hundred specialists from fifty countries. Also, and interestingly, I heard recently that you need to be unhappy for 30% of the time in order to be a truly happy person - a reassuring thought to bear in mind in the dark times or when others around us are feeling blue. I hope some of these ideas will sustain you if you are finding some of the symptoms of menopause challenging.

Happy people live for the now!

Accept what you have: Happy people have modest levels of expectation; they want what they can get.

Enjoy what you do: Happy people do what they enjoy and enjoy what they do, and don’t do it for the glory and the money.

Live for today: Happy people live for the now - they don’t dwell on the past or on things that went wrong.

Relationships: We get our happiness from other people, and from supporting others. As others can make us happy, we are all ‘other people’.

Stop worrying: Happy people don’t worry; they recognise that 90% of worries never come true.

Think positive thoughts: Happy people get things off their chest. Bottling up emotions and bad feelings creates psychological distress and physical discomfort.

Do you have any secrets to happiness to share with the rest of us?

Photo by Iseult O'Brien

Aisling, I am reading a book by Russ Harris called “The Happiness Trap”, it’s written with Mindfulness in mind. Let me quote from the book:
“The word “happiness” has two very different meanings. The common meaning of the word is “feeling good.” In other words, feeling a sense of pleasure, gladness, or gratification. We all enjoy these feelings, so it’s no surprise that we chase them. However, like all human emotions, feelings of happiness don’t last. No matter how hard we try to hold on to them, they slip away every time. As we shall see, a life spent in pursuit of those good feelings is, in the long term, deeply unsatisfying. In fact, the harder we chase after pleasurable feelings, the more we are likely to suffer from anxiety and depression.
The other far-less-common meaning of happiness is “living a rich, full, and meaningful life”. When we take action on the things that truly matter deep in our hearts, move in a direction that we consider valuable and worthy, clarify what we stand for in life and act accordingly, then our lives become rich and full and meaningful, and we experience a powerful sense of vitality. This is not some fleeting feeling - it is a profound sense of a life well lived. And although such a life will undoubtedly give us many pleasurable feelings, it will also give us uncomfortable ones, such as sadness, fear, and anger. This is only to be expected. If we live a full life, we will feel the full range of human emotions”.

Karita

27 Nov 13

Thanks Karita - that makes a whole lot of sense. A very useful addition to the conversation. Here’s to the rich, full and meaningful life! Thinking you might like to write a blog some time?

Aisling

28 Nov 13

What Makes A Happy Person?

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