Happiness is . . .

Well at least according to research . . . to me it is always doing new stuff that gets different parts of your brain going. What do you think it is?

abcnews.go.com...

Oct. 2 — What would it take to make you really satisfied with your life? According to decades of research by a husband and wife team of psychologists at the University of Michigan, you need to put yourself in an environment that meets three basic human needs.

To make your way down the road to happiness you need to feel competent and believe that you can make a difference. You also need to understand what the heck is going on around you and have the opportunity to choose your own options.

I believe this makes sense but what about the other studies that said the real road to happiness was meeting your expectations for yourself in life?

I guess if you slice and dice this then you get the same thing.

Well, sadly, you can take it further than that. Happiness is not implicit in those things (or we'd be living in a utopia right now). Happiness is a feeling generated from those conditions ... for some. Do you think Dick Cheney is happy? He's got a family, mad benjamins all the choices. But I'm very sure he's not happy. I say that article is bunk w/o even reading it! ehhee.

I'd agree with the article.

For the record, I have a very happy life -- and I do have all those expectations met. During the parts of my life where they were NOT met, I was a pretty unhappy camper.

Interesting research, and a timely post. I was just reviewing a Call For Papers for the annual meeting of the American Ethnologist Society in Georgia (2004) and they were asking for papers on crisis and the attitudes of the American public. So this was in the back of my mind as I encountered your post!

Don't know if I'll do something about crisis and cyberspace (I haven't come up with a thesis for this idea) but your link was a useful datapoint to encounter!

In fact, the more I think about it, the sense of helplessness may be a very important component of the feeling of crisis. Hmm. We've got an information overloaded society and we're trying to deal with the pace of technology... hmmm......


(Byrd just thinking aloud here...)

Happiness is...
a warm gun.

*nods*

-B.

agreed,

noone will be happy in a alein envirment

Banshee you took the words right out of my mouth

If the key points of the article are these:

Happiness Is...
Scientists Claim Satisfaction in Life Is Made Up of Three Things

What would it take to make you really satisfied with your life? According to decades of research by a husband and wife team of psychologists at the University of Michigan, you need to put yourself in an environment that meets three basic human needs.

To make your way down the road to happiness you need to feel competent and believe that you can make a difference. You also need to understand what the heck is going on around you and have the opportunity to choose your own options.

.... then I think the article has contradicted itself.

This is entering into semantics, but it's an important distinction. Happiness is not the same as satisfaction.

Notice how it moves into being 'down the road to happiness' by having these feelings of association with others and the outside world. These definitions of 'satisfaction' are all about the outward path, about goal setting and feeling a sense of attainment and influencing the world in some way.

They are fine for people who would only be 'happy' by measuring their material attainments along these lines.

But that to me is not happiness.

To me, anyone who is always in the future (planning, goal setting) and in the past (evaluating how they went along the dimensions of their plans and goals) is someone who is never in the moment. The world trains corporated drones and business people and bureaucrats to be this way.

These people cannot be happy, unless they have also learned to be in the moment.

If you cannot fully appreciate who you are, where you are, at every given moment in time, if you live a life of numbness in material pursuit, you will never be happy, no matter how well you address the criteria in this study.

Just my opinion, of course. Who am I to know really what makes other people happy?

I certainly did not mean to have the 'last word' on happiness.

It makes me decidedly unhappy.

Love! Obviously, anyone who has shared in the
exchange of ultimate soul value in totality; meaning
give entirely of self and receive entirely of them,
knows, in the face of it all, to share in the ultimate
journey of the souls. I have to say, it would be
anyone's desire to share being with and of another
forming a bond that supercedes any circumstance,
event or moment with its power.

Among the best research on controllable variables which impact happiness was that done by a psychologist named Csikszentmihalyi (yes, that's really his name, Google him), author of "Flow" and "Finding Flow". He used an approach called "time sampling research" and found that happiness was related to an individual's immersion in "flow states". These are states in which a person loses track of time because they are so captivated by their activity. Activities usually associated with flow states included conversation, sex, leisure activities such as fine arts and sports (because the intensity of the action also increases serotonin levels), meaningful and interesting work, and sometimes even things like driving, reading, and movies. Not only was the flow state intrinsically enjoyable, but it had a lasting impact on brain function that increased their overall happiness the rest of the time.
In more conventional research (say, a one-time standardized pencil-and-paper test), the most powerful predictor of overall happiness is relationships, particularly marital relationship or its equivalent.
Oh, and to follow that up, since you can only have sex or sport activities for so long in a day or a week, the "flow" research found that happiness was associated with finding flow in one's work and other avocation.

Csikszentmihalyi found that flow was most likely when goals were clear, distractions were few, work was closely matched to one's skills, and... ah, a couple things that I forget.

Also my 2Cents The amount of money you have won't MAKE you happy, but it will take away a lot of the obstacles that prevent you from being happy. Money makes you more of what you already are

[Edited on 22-10-2003 by FreedomFighterChris]

I'm fairly in agreement with Mr. Leary's assessment.

Accidental double post.

[Edited on 22-10-2003 by heelstone]

Thank you!! I am surprised that this post stayed alive this long. (-:

For some reason your response struck a cord with me (a good one), and I agree. My biggest problem is that I am too self-centered. I get too wrapped up in my own show (the life I have made for myself, and my interests) that I just don't pay enough attention to the here and now. Derned good points there, and relavent, at least to me. Thanks MA!

-P