Have you ever known someone who was happy all the time? It’s not that they don’t “go through” the same stuff everyone one else “goes through” but they seem anchored to happiness, composed, less troubled in the world’s Café Adversity. “They should be more bothered than they are.”
Maybe you share a tormenting boss, you’re in your first year of law school, you’re a new parent an sleep deprived or have the same difficult relationships at work… Regardless, things that should frustrate and drag a person down don’t seem to have that effect on your happy friend. They see challenge versus threat, opportunity versus risk, reasons to be optimistic versus distrusting. They seem energetic to take action versus sluggish and slow to move. They seem happy. Happiness is not abstract. It is the “experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with the sense that one’s life is good.” Is it possible to become more like this? Yes…But…there are a few myths to dispel.
Myth #1: Happiness Must Be Found There is the prevalent idea that happiness only occurs when the safe is cracked and all of the tumblers have miraculously fallen into place. Then, ever so often we get to experience happiness. The fact is that 40% of our happiness occurs through intentional activity. To understand this means that you have the power to impact your own life through intentional strategies that you engage to “make yourself” happier.
Coming Soon: Myth #2 I Must Change My Circumstances To Be Happy
(Thanks to “The How of Happiness” by Lyubomirsky)