Ways to Happiness

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Ways to Happiness

The Happy Circumstances that are the Secret to a Happy Life

What are the ways to happiness and the secret of a happy life? How do we find true happiness and avoid the futile pursuit of happiness? Science tells us the elements of happiness that lead most directly to a happy life and the ones that we think will make us happy and don't.

In his book, Authentic Happiness, Dr. Martin Seligman says that our overall life happiness is made up of our happiness set point, our life circumstances and our thoughts and actions. The ways to happinessare to maximize our happy thoughts, happy actions and happy circumstances as best we can and don't worry about the rest.

The most immediate and effective way to find true happiness is to train yourself to think happy thoughts like being grateful, or loving, or optimistic. Optimism is one secret to a happy life.

To the extent that we have control over our circumstances, this is one of the other ways to happiness. You can maximize your happiness by seeking out happy circumstances. Surprisingly, healthy, wealthy and wise (or at least advanced degrees) are not ways to happiness. Here are the circumstances, the elements of happiness, that do make a positive difference:

How to Find True Happiness

1) Think Happy Thoughts and Engage in Happy Actions

These two paths are sure ways to raise your happiness level. They are two of the secrets of a happy life.

2) Country Where You Live

People who live in wealthy, democratic countries are markedly happier than those who live in impoverished dictatorships. Study after study shows that once your basic physical needs for survival, food, water, and shelter are met, more money doesn't necessarily bring happiness. However, people in poverty- wherever they live- tend to have somewhat less life satisfaction. People in democracies, where there is some hope of movement out of poverty and some element of social stability and peaceful change of leadership tend to be more satisfied with life overall. Although there is a strong statistical correlation between living in a wealthy democracy and higher life satisfaction, this is often not an element of happiness that people can easily change.

3) Marriage

Married people are generally happier than single people, although it is not clear if being married makes you happier or being happier makes you more likely to get married, marriage shows up strongly as one of the ways to happiness. People who are happier with life are also usually happier in their marriages.

4) Rich Social Network

Married or single, people that spend a lot of time with friends and who have a lot of friends are happier. Like marriage, it is not clear which comes first, happiness or friends. Of all the circumstances that we can generally control, this one correlates most strongly to over all happiness levels. The Dalai Lama explains the link between good relationships and the secret to happiness "We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others' actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others' activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others."

5) Spiritual Beliefs

People with strong religious beliefs tend to be a little happier than others. Although this correlation holds for all types of spiritual beliefs, people with more fundamentalist beliefs tend to be slightly happier than people with more open beliefs. The correlation between spirituality and a happy life is not as strong as poverty and social life, but it is there and it does make a difference.

6) Life Events

People who live through negative events like the death of someone close, war, or disaster tend to be a little sadder than those who are more fortunate. Again, this correlation is not as strong as poverty and social life and usually is not within our control.

How to Avoid the Futile Pursuit of Happiness

The following elements DO NOT correlate to a happier life. This means that having more of these things in your life will not necessarily make you happier and having less will not make you sadder. These things don't interfere with over life satisfaction and happiness, they have no effect one way or another. So, if you are looking for ways to happiness, don't waste your time here.

1) More Money

Once you have enough money to meet your basic needs for food, shelter and safety, money has little effect on your overall happiness level.

2) Optimal Health

Moderate poor health does not bring lasting unhappiness, but severe illness does. So, to live a happy life, pay attention to your health so you can life a long life without severe illness and you can feel good physically as much as possible, but there is no need to chase after the perfect body to be happy.

3) Advanced Degrees

The education level as measured by school and academic degrees does not impact the overall happiness level. True wisdom is another matter. There is deep wisdom in happiness, but not the kind you can measure with an advanced degree.

4) Race

Race does not impact over all happiness.

5) Climate

Moving to a better climate is not one of the ways to happiness.

Based on this research, the ways to happiness are:
1) Happy Thoughts and Activities
2) Rich Social Network of Good Relationships

The way to find true happiness is to spend time with your family and friends doing things you all enjoy and notice and appreciate how much you enjoy it. Avoid the futile pursuit of happiness by spending less time and energy on getting rich or having the perfect something without appreciating how much you already are rich or already have perfect. These are the elements of happiness.

So, in the words of Bobby McFerrin,

Don't worry,

Be happy.

Try these secrets of a happy life for more ways to happiness.

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