“What possible reason does that person have to be unhappy?” Within that question is the key to understanding the concept of happiness.
The above question assumes that our external world is predictive of our happiness levels but the reality is happiness comes from within, simply by how we view our world.
Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Is the world out to get you or does every cloud have a silver lining? An optimistic outlook reduces the risk of physical and emotional health problems, and therefore, it is really worth our while focusing on creating happiness and positivity in our lives and reducing negativity.
I was discussing my belief on how important it is to be happy with my friend Linda. A self-confessed (and proud of it) pessimist, she said that she believed that the human species is just not meant to be happy, and guess what? She is not completely wrong.
To be honest I felt a certain relief when I came to the realisation that we are not supposed to be happy all the time. We may want that, but nature designed us to have emotions for a reason. Emotions are a primitive signalling system. They’re how our brains tell us if we’re doing things that enhance – or diminish – our survival chances. We’re supposed to be moving through these emotional states.so if someone offers you a pill that makes you happy 100 per cent of the time,. you should run fast in the other direction. It’s not good to feel happy in a dark alley at night!
Sometimes we look at others and envy their knack tor happiness. We wonder why we can’t seem to find that ‘place’. Life’s lessons have taught me to revise this way of thinking and to understand that happiness is a place to visit, not a place to live. Good times come and go for everyone on the planet but what makes a real difference is to be found in our mindset and our perception of what makes us happy.
What can give us a lasting boost is how we think and behave, rather than depending on the material world to validate our happiness. It is nor the place, nor the condition, but the mind alone that can make anyone happy or miserable. Understanding this makes it easier for us to live with the moments we perceive as difficult. We recognise that these negative moments won’t last when we deve1op an optimistic view of our life.
Although I would have always classed myself as an optimist, for a large part of my life I bought into the modus operandi “If I work harder, l will be more successful; and if I’m more successful, then I will be happier”. But, every time I enjoyed a success, it seemed as though I changed my valuation of what success looked like as I aspired to achieve something bigger and better. That was one sure fire formula for failure! Learning that these patterns and paradigms of thinking that didn’t serve me well were easily reversed, changed my life completely. In retrospect it was just a simple shift in my outlook towards optimism and positivity in the present moment that. allowed me to achieve happiness.
A number of years ago, I trained as a counsellor. My mum died when I was a teenager and I understood what it felt like to be in a place of pain, and thought that my training would help me to assist others through dark moments in their life. The reality was that I felt that my training only taught me to help my clients to focus with increased strength on their hurt and pain and to use up Kleenex as fast as possible.
I began to question the world of therapy and look around for a different answer to our quest for happiness, and I believe that I have found this in the positive psychology movement. It evolved from the work of psychologist Martin Seligman, who went from being the world’s leading scholar on “learnt helplessness” and depression to become the world’s leading scholar on optimism. In simple terms he became curious about what it is about some people that they just never give up even in the face of extreme adversity where other people can find it extraordinarily difficult to deal with quite minor challenges.
I met Professor Seligman at the first world conference on positive psychology in Pennsylvania. In truth, I expected to meet a happy and jolly person fun of wise words and positive thoughts. Instead, I met a man who told me that he was, by nature, a natural pessimist. It turns out that this man who has introduced the world to a more positive way of viewing life is, in his words, “not a natural optimist”.
Indeed he explained for the first 50 years of his life he endured “mostly wet weather in his soul”. Through his research he discovered developing more positive emotions in our lives will build friendship, love, better physical health, greater happiness and greater achievement. At last it all made sense to me and I was determined, not just to embrace this “strengths based” approach to living my life, but I also wanted to share it with anyone who would listen.
As a society, we wrongly hold fast to a number of assumptions about what will make us happy. Ironically, some of these may be evolutionary necessities – it can seem like there is a “conspiracy” between genes and culture to keep us in the dark about the real sources of happiness. I was genuinely surprised to read research by Professor Daniel Gilbert, psychologist and author of Stumbling on Happiness that people reported having children as having had ‘only a small effect on happiness and it is a negative one’. Well let’s face it, if we figured out that children don’t make us happy, we would become extinct!
I have discovered that having a positive-thinking mindset has led me to perform significantly better than if I were negative, neutral or stressed. Not only does it make me feel much happier, but the other big advantage is that my brain becomes more engaged, creative, energetic and resilient. It’s true! We naturally become more productive and successful when we think positively, and this can significantly improve our life’s reality and outcome. Remember that what we take our attention away from will wither and die, and what we focus our attention on in our life will grow – “I think, therefore lam”.
Happily, there are substantiated ways and methods to effectively help develop a positive mindset, and they’re very easy to do. I have listed some of my favourite and successful tips to help you achieve a happier and more fulfilled life. Go on…give them a try for a month, and I am positive you’ll never look back.
Then at the end of your life, you won’t wish that you had let yourself be happier. Instead you might say “I am so glad that I gave myself permission to be happy”.
By Paula King
