Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D. 3-21
ABSTRACT: Considerations for having a sufficient amount of happiness in one’s life are presented, along with some guidelines for being happy.
KEY WORDS: happiness, emotion, well-being, satisfaction, contentment, fulfillment
The most general emotional goal we have as human beings can be summarized as “happiness.” In my system of fundamental human goals (survival, minimal physical and emotional pain, some amount of time in a positive emotional state, sex, raising offspring, group acceptance and participation), the term “positive emotional state” includes all pleasant emotional states, not just happiness, but happiness is still a useful catch-all term for the sum of our positive emotions minus the sum of our negative emotions. Happiness is the subjective state that all emotionally healthy people seek and prefer, and it is the short-term test that most people use in assessing whether they feel “good” and whether their lives are “good.”
For a child, most happiness is momentary and fleeting—e.g., the happiness of getting desired presents on Christmas, followed by a period of valuing these presents and then by a time of diminishing happiness as the child becomes bored, realizes that these presents are not as wonderful as she had imagined, and turns to other possibilities. Many adults maintain this view of happiness, looking daily for a concrete happiness “fix”—something that will “make” us happy (movies, alcohol or drugs, drag racing, counting one’s money, being invited to a high-class social gathering, interaction with friends, having sex, taking a walk, etc.—all activities that may bring short-term happiness). When we look at more mature and wiser adults, we find that they favor greater proportions of longer-term happiness—specifically satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment, all of which require some reflection on one’s experience and all of which can be relatively lasting.
Happiness is defined (Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary) as “a state of well-being or contentment” and “a pleasurable satisfaction,” with “joy” as a synonym. Dictionary.Com defines it as “good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy” and notes that “happiness results from the possession or attainment of what one considers good.”
These definitions are less than adequate, since for one thing, happiness is not equivalent to good fortune but is a feeling that usually results from having good fortune. Similarly, happiness is not equivalent to pleasure but is rather that feeling state that usually results from feeling pleased. Joy is better understood as a stronger version of happiness, and contentment is certainly different from happiness.
For some psychologists and philosophers, the sense of well-being is more or less interchangeable with happiness. While these are no doubt highly correlated, one’s sense of well-being is based on an evaluative conclusion that one’s life is at least OK in almost all respects, while happiness is a feeling or emotional state that is distinguishable from other emotional states, as described below. My rough and ready definition of happiness is “a positive (and therefore pleasant or highly pleasant), surging or expansive, outward-pointing kind of feeling that is accompanied by smiles, hopefulness, and a general sense of well-being.” Smiling is the instinctive muscle reaction to feeling happy. Since happiness is a positive and outward-pointing mood, it is natural that it supports our sense of hope. When we are feeling happy, it is easy to ignore some problems and to feel an overall sense that things are OK in my life (well-being).
Happiness is not the same as pleasure, since it is an emotional state or general mood while pleasure is the positive feeling that one may have in response to a specific or limited stimulus (smoking, smoking a marijuana cigarette, eating one’s favorite food). Happiness requires feeling pleased as well as the relative absence of pain, displeasure, and worry, at least adequate satisfaction of survival needs, a tolerable pain level, and some group acceptance. The general mood of happiness may be started through having a single, significant pleasure together with the absence of sources of unhappiness, but it often involves several different pleasures (e.g., having a good meal and completing the final chapter in a book you are writing or reading that day).
Happiness is an aspect of flourishing (Greek—eudaimonia), which includes excellence in essential activities (friendship, family, practical wisdom, participation as a citizen, etc.) that affect one’s overall welfare, and which may well (though not necessarily) result in happiness. Aristotle viewed eudaimonia as living well and doing well (seeking to actualize excellence in essential activities plus behaving well and treating others well). Eudaimonia is about being a member of the group (city, nation) who functions well and contributes positively and does not harm others or the group, whereas our modern concept of happiness is more aimed at our individual feelings, including but not limited to pleasure. Our greatest long-term happiness is likely to result from activities that are most meaningful to ourselves.
Humans vary greatly in the amount of happiness they report in their lives. Some claim to have very little, and some to be happy much of the time. Some are optimists and some pessimists, with optimists having more happiness in life. There may be a genetic component pushing some individuals toward or away from happiness, but there is much that we can do on purpose to maximize our happiness.
Happiness can result from many different situations and experiences—the happiness of feeling carefree, of feeling close to someone, of accomplishing something, of sharing empathically another‘s happiness, etc. What makes them all happiness is that they all have in common a positive (and therefore pleasant), surging or expansive, outward-pointing kind of feeling that is accompanied by smiles, hopefulness, and a general sense of well-being. Greater degrees of happiness border on joy, and beyond that is the feeling of ecstasy. Lesser degrees of happiness may be described as satisfaction, contentment, or peacefulness (with much less of the “surging” aspect in the previous sentence).
Another related concept is that of “flow,” which is a strong feeling of happiness and centeredness accompanying a complete immersion in some activity, to the exclusion of other stimuli (often a project involving fixing or discovering but also occurring in sport). A similar feeling is attributed to the “runner’s high,” although this is pretty exclusively physiological.
Having meaning in one’s life and a sense of purpose in one’s life may increase one’s happiness, by increasing one’s sense of personal value and by decreasing the amount of uncertainty and doubt that are a part of every life. Meaning is the experience of feeling or being aware of some success of our own or some event in the environment that serves or gratifies one or more of our fundamental motives and seems to move us toward achieving one or more of our fundamental goals in life (surviving, being loved, being accepted by others, being in a positive emotional state at least part of the time, having and raising children, helping others in our groups, and making sense of our reality so that we can survive and thrive). Meaning indicates to us that we are moving toward life as we wish it to be or think that it “should” be (which is always consistent with what we would judge to be “a good life”). We feel a sense of meaning in response to recognizing that we are doing “what we are supposed to do” in living. We feel a sense of meaning or meaningfulness when we become aware of how our actions or our lives are “right” for us, are demonstrating what we believe is important in life, are illustrating our values, or are gratifying our fundamental motives.
Sensing meaning in one’s life often results in tears (more of joy than sadness, or of both joy and sadness together), as well as feelings of satisfaction, fulfillment, humility, awe, reverence, love, and gratitude. Many people find sufficient meaning in helping others, in participating in large group activities with people they identify with (war, watching football in a stadium, attending church, political rallies, lynching), in being an active part of a valued larger entity or enterprise (church, science, one’s profession, nation, corporation), or in doing something that means something to someone else.
Many people feel happier if they have a sense of purpose in life. A sense of purpose can be felt from being part of a purpose that is “larger than ourselves” or transcends our personal lives (giving one’s life to Jesus, devoting one’s life to charity, devoting one’s life to raising one’s children). People often choose a purpose that is defined by someone else (what God wants; what one’s parents want; what a political leader wants; etc.), since this is easier than formulating one’s values and from that composing one’s purpose oneself.
A sense of purpose can also be found by doing in daily life what one finds most satisfying and fulfilling, whether that is taking care of one’s family, expressing complex experience in written words, making a beautiful piece of furniture, composing music, or providing food or drink for one’s fellow men. Each of these is an honorable enterprise and is sufficient purpose for a human being. In this sense, every human life contains enough activities to allow one this sense of having a purpose. One’s daily choices and actions express one’s sense of purpose, in terms of the values for which one lives. Living so as to express and enhance what one values most defines a purpose for oneself.
Calmness and serenity, the goal of the Stoics, is not the same thing as happiness, even though it is a happier state than pain and suffering. We can learn much, though, from the Stoics about training the mind to see things in realistic context and to not take many things as seriously as we do.
For many people the practices of deep relaxation and meditation increase happiness. Relaxation takes away the distractions of physical tensions and helps us focus inside, and meditation helps us to gain perspective on our situation and condition, thus reducing stress. There are a number of different approaches to meditation in Buddhism, and “transcendental meditation” was quite the rage in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
It is commonplace now to caution that happiness is not best found by aiming to achieve happiness but that it occurs spontaneously as a result of our current actions. It is the conclusion of the author, after observing people for a lifetime (well, almost a lifetime), both professionally and personally, that you will have the greatest chance of the most happiness in life through focusing on having good (gratifying, positive) relationships with others and on freely using all of your skills and abilities to serve goals that you find meaningful and that contribute to the welfare of others as well as yourself.
Most philosophers have concluded that happiness is a fundamental goal of human beings and that we generally see as “good” things that further our welfare and as “bad” things that obstruct us in achieving our goals. Arthur Schopenhauer claimed that we can only have partial happiness (due to our own genetic make-up and to the fact that life inevitably includes some pain and suffering). Some religions promise ecstatic states of happiness in union (often mystical) with the divine (Christianity, Islam) or complete contentment and peacefulness through non-attachment (eliminating grasping for gratification of desires) in Buddhism’s
nirvana. Other religions urge us to do our best to be content with our current lives while we wait for something better after death.
Salient factors related over the centuries to happiness are morality and choice. Religions tend to claim that you will be happy if you are living morally. This may gain its relevance through the fact that if you are living morally, you will have a clear conscience (or more clear than otherwise), which removes one nagging cause of unhappiness or distress that would interfere with happiness. To state it in the reverse, if you are not living morally (at least in terms of your own definition of what is moral), you are not likely to be happy.
Some research has found that beyond the satisfaction of basic needs (adequate food, shelter, clothing, safety), one’s feeling of having choices in life is positively correlated with happiness, perhaps again indirectly, since not having choices feels constraining and that constraint is likely to relate to actual unhappinesses. Having choice implies a greater likelihood of being able to find situations and experiences that will bring happiness.
It is difficult, though not impossible, to be happy while suffering. Indeed, since life does inevitably involve some pain and suffering, we all must figure out how to deal with our suffering and still be happy part of the time. There are practical and attitudinal sides to this. We must, of course, minimize our likelihood of suffering, by avoiding situations and stimuli that will induce pain and suffering. We avoid creating fires in our houses that would destroy them. We drive safely (or safely enough) instead of recklessly. We quit smoking. We opt for an ongoing job rather than less reliable day labor. There is prudence in this—avoiding needless risks and keeping our behavior within bounds that make it less likely that we will have trouble, both in the environment and with other people.
Happiness is more than just relief from pain and suffering, even though that relief feels better than the suffering. Happiness also points forward to maintain itself and views the resulting maintenance actions as positive.
Another solution to the problem of suffering in life is to train the body not to notice suffering as much by experiencing pain purposely (asceticism) or purposely reducing pleasure in one’s life (and then getting used to this regimen). This approach is used by some monks and fakirs (fasting, sleeping on a bed of nails) to get one used to pain and hopefully to eventually reduce the sensations of pain. Gurus and other guides may counsel non-attachment (in the Buddhist sense of conflict-free letting go of desire) to achieve emotional equilibrium and inner peace, but
this may or may not result in a positive, exaltation kind of happiness instead of just a state of peacefulness.
Our own defenses against the pain of disappointment can act against our happiness. Most children at least wonder about whether it could be true that every time they are happy, something comes to take it away, so that perhaps it’s best not to be too happy, in order to avoid that disappointment. In a more general sense, the insistence of our minds on everything having a cause can make us wonder if our happiness is being controlled by some outside force (God, the Devil, witches), since our own control over it is at best tenuous.
Many people set conditions that they must meet before they will let themselves be happy, hoping thus to make themselves work harder at these requirements (I must get A’s to please my parents or prove myself, so I won’t let myself be happy unless I do) or make themselves
carry out their duty (honoring my parents means that I should not be happy unless they are OK and are happy with me). This kind of requirement-setting will reduce your overall amount of happiness in life. You deserve all the happiness that you can get (within the bounds of the community’s morals and standards).
Some people are stymied regarding happiness by restricting themselves to seeking happiness only through what they have been told will make them happy. This may come from parents or from religion (you’ll be happy if you get a big enough house; you’ll be happy if you give up some of your own benefit to others). It’s best to be open to whatever results in your happiness, whether or not that is within the realm of what others think (sky-diving? volunteer work? learning the guitar? just walking in the woods?).
Happiness and satisfaction are relatively quick to come and go, while the equally pleasant states of contentment and fulfillment are somewhat more stable and longer-lasting. Happiness can be renewed by the same stimulus, though frequent repetitions of the same stimulus will lead to a dulling of the happiness response to that stimulus due to the normal human neural accommodation process. Some religious practitioners aim to achieve constant bliss, but since they are human, with human neural systems, it is unlikely that they will ever succeed in this (although it is conceivable that a few individuals could come close). Happiness can easily be interrupted by other stimuli that take our attention, which points up the fact that happiness survives most easily when we have no cares.
As we grow up we learn of some situations/experiences that will reliably lead us to feel happy, and it is our nature to seek those out. In a sense, everything we do relates to our seeking of happiness. In every environment and situation, we maneuver to try to feel happy. It becomes important, therefore, to know what will bring us happiness. If we get the idea that using drugs will bring us happiness, since they may feel quite good in the short-term, we may be in for a shock and a poor life in the long term, since drug use uses up money and often results in bad effects on our lives, such as losing jobs, health, and loved ones. Are your preferred routes to happiness really working for you in both the short-term and long-term?
Comparing our own situation to those of others can be used to feel better about oneself and one’s own situation (there but for the grace of God…) or it can lead to less happiness if our comparison finds us not doing as well as others or if we focus on what we don’t have rather than on what we do have.
In a similar vein, perfectionism and trying too hard to please others are both enemies of happiness, because they both motivate us to neglect our own feelings and desires. In perfectionism we judge ourselves against an impossible ideal and whip ourselves to always do more and try harder (leaving us no time to please ourselves). In trying too hard to please others we repeatedly put others’ presumed needs above our own. We need an appropriate balance between pleasing others (to maintain our place in the social system or to feel good ourselves by helping others to feel good) and pleasing ourselves in order to maximize our happiness.
The focus here is basically on our inner life and what we can do about it directly, so it is important not to forget the value for our inner life of the nature of our interactions with others. It has been posited here that “you will have the greatest chance of the most happiness in life through focusing on having good (gratifying, positive) relationships with others and on freely using all of your skills and abilities to serve goals that you find meaningful and that contribute to the welfare of others as well as yourself,” and that you will set yourself up for happiness if you feel good about your life, feel good about how you have helped others, and feel good about how you treat yourself. Not only are good relationships fruitful in themselves, but doing things that benefit others is productive for ourselves as well. This doing for others can be in the form of volunteer work in a hospital or soup kitchen, writing things that others can benefit from, making furniture for Habitat for Humanity, organizing a neighborhood cook-out, etc. We become happier by helping others to feel better and to have better lives, through seeing others happier and with greater well-being, through our empathic experience of that benefit for others, and through our positive intention with regard to others and how that shows through in all of our behavior.
Striving for excess or too much happiness can dull or destroy a happiness mood, since the dissatisfaction of not getting what one wants (even more happiness than what one has already) produces unhappiness. This is one result of the human problem of not “knowing” when to be satisfied. We are wired to continually seek pleasure and avoid pain, regardless of the current
levels of pleasure and pain, with the single exception of hunger and thirst for which we have built-in satiety mechanisms (which you can access by waiting at any point for a couple of minutes while eating or drinking to see if satiety kicks in). So, knowing what is enough and what is satisfying to you is important in maximizing your happiness.
Since happiness is one test of whether one is having a good life, if one is not experiencing a reasonable amount of happiness in one’s life, it would be well to examine why. If we are in fact seeking situations/experiences that often lead to unhappiness, then our assumptions about where to look for happiness must be revised. If we are following a set of rules or values that promise happiness but actually result in unhappiness (such as that self-sacrifice or doing what
others expect will lead to happiness), then we must question those rules and values and examine how we came to believe that they would lead to happiness. If we come to believe that
keeping others happy will lead us to happiness because we will get approval and/or acceptance, we will discover that while approval and acceptance are nice (or may even be seen by us as children as being necessary in order to have any happiness), they lead to just as much inner conflict as they do happiness, since what others want is often not what is good for us.
Guidelines For Happiness
1. Choose actions and attitudes that are likely to result in happiness as a by-product of the action or attitude. Don’t set out with an over-focus on happiness as your main goal.
2. Learn through experience what gives you the greatest happiness and emphasize in your life those things that give you the greatest happiness (without themselves causing you other problems that actually reduce your overall happiness). Activities and relationships that are most meaningful for you are likely to provide the most long-term potential for happiness.
3. Be open to all sources of happiness, including those you have never experienced (as long as they don’t cause you other problems that reduce your happiness).
4. You will have the greatest chance of the most happiness if you focus on having good (gratifying, positive) relationships with others and on freely using all of your skills and abilities to serve goals that you find meaningful and that contribute to the welfare of others as well as yourself. (Remember Freud’s admonition that our goals are all about love and work.) Treating others well and being truly interested in others will go a long way toward making more happiness for you. Doing something vocationally or in your spare time that adds to the welfare and positive life experience of yourself and others (volunteer work, support work in your church, making household items that are useful and/or beautiful) will go a long way toward making more happiness for you.
5. Not only are good relationships fruitful in themselves, but doing things that benefit others is productive for ourselves as well. This doing for others can be in the form of volunteer work in a hospital or soup kitchen, writing things that others can benefit from, making furniture for Habitat for Humanity, organizing a neighborhood cook-out, etc. We become happier by helping others to feel better and to have better lives, through seeing others happier and with greater well-being, through our empathic experience of that benefit for others, and through our positive intention with regard to others and how that shows through in all of our behavior. We do good for ourselves by doing good for others.
6. The experience of “flow,” as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, can be cultivated to produce deep enjoyment, creativity, and total involvement with life. In this state, a person is totally focused and involved in some meaningful activity.
7. Happiness is enhanced when we feel a sense of meaning or meaningfulness in our lives and when we feel a sense of purpose in our lives. Meaning and purpose can be cultivated in one’s life by organizing one’s life around activities that fulfill our basic goals in life, that are consistent with what we feel life is supposed to be and who we are supposed to be, that express our values, and that we find most satisfying and fulfilling in life.
8. Don’t want too much in the way of happiness. “Just feeling happy” is sufficient for you to have a nice day! We don’t need ecstasy to have a nice life, and only occasional patches of joy are enough joy as well. Trying for more happiness than is happening naturally for you is likely to result in disappointment and feelings of failure.
9. Notice and examine everything that causes you unhappiness. Can you do something about these things? Just because life is one way now doesn’t mean that it must be that way in the future, and just because you are one way now doesn’t mean that you cannot be different in the future.
10. Avoid situations and relationships that cause pain and suffering. Harming yourself, sacrificing yourself, and denying yourself things that are available and good for you will cause you unhappiness.
If you are choosing situations and relationships that cause some pain and suffering, either change your choices or take responsibility for your choices and suffer with good grace. Some unavoidable pain and suffering is necessary in life (to tell us something is wrong and motivate us to do something about it), so use your unhappiness to make improvements and accept your remaining unhappiness as one of the prices of being human.
11. We naturally grow up comparing ourselves and our situations to those of others (especially siblings). This is a set-up for feeling bad, because there will always be people who do better than we do and people who have inherited situations that are better than ours. If you are relatively optimistic, it can help to realize that there are always people worse off than you are, but if you are relatively pessimistic, you may well decrease your happiness by focusing on what you don’t have rather than on what you do have. Focus on what you actually do feel and have, and appreciate them as much as possible. Don’t let your self-esteem be tied to achievement and comparisons with others and their lives.
12. Optimists will have more happiness than pessimists, so you will benefit from cultivating optimistic attitudes. This should be realistic optimism, however, not Pollyannaish optimism or the foolish attitude that the way things are is the best possible life.
13. Don’t believe the childhood tendency to think that every time you feel happy something will take it away. Of course happiness cannot be endless, since problems will always come along in life sooner or later, but there is no person or thing out there “taking it away”—happiness is interrupted by our existential position as fragile human beings in a difficult world. We must learn to cope with this as well as we can. Find and enjoy as much happiness as you can!
14. Don’t set requirements for yourself about when you will let yourself be happy (you won’t let yourself be happy unless your mother is happy with you, if you get a certain grade point average, if you make the team). You can be at least somewhat happy much of the time if you let yourself.
15. Be aware of whether your actions/attitudes will have short-term or longer-term payoffs (or both). Using a drug may feel good for a brief time, but it may create additional problems for you in the future. Getting good job training or education may cause some pain in the short-term but give you much greater happiness in the future. In addition, specific happinesses (an event, a milestone, an acquisition) fade with time and repetition. Basing part of your happiness on longer-term contentment and fulfillment (feeling good about your life, feeling good about how you have helped others, feeling good about how you treat yourself) will give you a greater total of short-term and long-term happiness.
16. If you are genetically inclined toward unhappiness or depression, you will need to work harder at making sure that your attitudes and actions are those that will tend to move you toward a positive rather than a negative emotional state.
17. Your purposive and determined actions can move you toward happiness. If you “force yourself” to sincerely smile at others and greet them nicely, it will pull you toward a more positive emotional state, and if you do this consistently, it will become a habit. Think about how a sincere reply of “great” to the pro forma “How are you?” that we employ buoys you up just a little bit (unless you are immediately envious!).
18. Calmness and serenity, the goal of the Stoics, is not the same thing as happiness, even though it is a happier state than pain and suffering. We can learn much, though, from the Stoics about training the mind to see things in realistic context and to not take many things as seriously as we do.
19. For many people the practices of deep relaxation and meditation increase happiness. Relaxation takes away the distractions of physical tensions and helps us focus inside, and meditation helps us to gain perspective on our situation and condition, thus reducing stress.
There are a number of different approaches to meditation in Buddhism, and “transcendental meditation” was quite the rage in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
20. Keep control of your desires and expectations, so that you don’t want and expect more than is realistically possible. Be rational and reasonable about what you expect, and accept doing without what you are not likely to get even with your greatest effort. Practice by denying yourself eating too much or eating things that taste good but are not good for you, since this ability to control your eating can spread to other desire areas. Focus on the fact that by eating in a healthy manner you are doing what is best for yourself (which should make you feel good about yourself), rather than taking something away from yourself.
21. Appreciate what you do have. Human beings can adjust and feel good about life at many levels of comfort and happiness. Remembering good feelings and good times helps to put things in perspective, and reviewing your day at the end of each day, especially noting the good, happiness-producing things that happened and that you did, sets up a positive expectation for the next day. Gratitude (being grateful for what one has and is) is a positive emotion and adds to happiness.
22. Consider whether some of the external things you want (cars, overeating, drugs, excitement) are substitutes for internal things that you want without realizing it, such as more love, better self-esteem, closer friendships, and greater meaning in your life. Do something about your inner state.
Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer posited that we swing back and forth between happiness and boredom with each satisfaction that fades, so we keep on seeking new projects to make us happy. Attention to your inner needs and engaging in actions that give the greatest satisfaction (gratifying relationships and meaningful activity that increases your welfare and that of others) will allow you to find contentment without boredom.
23. Are the standards that you have for yourself causing you pain or contributing to your happiness? Perfectionism, for example, is an impossible standard that will definitely cause you pain. If your standards and expectations of yourself are causing you pain, then abandon them and decide for yourself what your standards for yourself should be, and be sure that they are humane, reasonable, and possible of achievement.
24. The approval of others is not necessary for you to be happy, even though you may have grown up thinking that it is. Many people try too hard to please others (and therefore neglect their own needs), thinking that they cannot be OK if they are not pleasing others. Needing approval and needing to keep others happy make your happiness and self-esteem dependent on the whims of others.
25. Nothing owes us happiness or a good life. We are the most responsible party for our experience of life. To put others or outside forces in charge of your happiness sets you up for feeling resentment and helplessness. This is not to deny that we are social creatures and “need” others to maximize our welfare, but simply to recognize that the more you can shape your own happiness, the more stable your happiness will be.
26. Basing your self-esteem on externals (achievements, genetics, family status, appearance, group membership) makes your happiness vulnerable to inevitable changes and comparisons. Base your self-esteem instead on your inherent value as a person, how you treat others, and what you contribute to the welfare of others and the community.
27. Everything is constantly changing, including your body and your thoughts. Recognizing and accepting this can help you to avoid unnecessary resentment and unhappiness. We must constantly adjust our efforts to be happy to fit the current reality.
28. Do the best you can in all your endeavors, and then accept the results with good grace. You will thus avoid ending up feeling regret that you didn’t do or try certain things.
As a reminder, here are the key processes for happiness!
- be open to any and all happiness that is not also harmful
- be clear that you deserve happiness, regardless of what anyone else says
- accept that some unhappiness is inherent in our human life
- focus on having good (gratifying, positive) relationships with others and on freely using all of your skills and abilities to serve goals that you find meaningful, that further your sense of purpose in life, and that contribute to the welfare of others as well as yourself
- attend to feeling good about your life, feeling good about how you have helped others, and feeling good about how you treat yourself
- remember that helping others to be happy will help you to be happy (as long as you don’t harm yourself in helping others to be happy)
- remember that you don’t need others’ approval to be happy
- accept that we can only be as happy as our physiology and brain circuitry
permit–we are inevitably limited to being human; be as happy as you can and be happy with that!
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. The Psychology of Optimal Experience. 2008
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Science of Being and Art of Living. 1963