Well, several weeks ago I promised to get back with the results of my research on authentic happiness and how to apply it specifically for people who have left the Borg. It has been a rather more surprising and complex study than I expected. I think one of the first surprises is that the pursuit of happiness is now becoming an academic discipline because of its importance in our lives.
There are a lot of choices we can make to make ourselves happier, but regardless of what strategy we use decide to use, you will be a lot better off in either Puerto Rico or Denmark. No, I?m not kidding. The global analysis from country to country shows that ?satisfied? people tend to live in Latin America, Western Europe and North America. As far as ranking goes, the USA is the 16 th for overall satisfaction, Australia is 20 th , and Britain 24 th .
This means that happiness sure isn?t about how much money you make. Once you can afford to house, clothe, and feed yourself, each extra dollar you earn makes less and less difference. Money does matter some, but not as much as you would think. For example, there are more happiness benefits from having a job than the actual income earned. A lot of people make the mistake that having an extra thousand dollars or so will make them happier, but actually it is often the status that makes them better off. Dollars buy status, but you can get status in other ways, like scientists and actors have status but often low paying jobs.
Another important lesson in learning to be happier is to desire less. Studies show that people who have aspirations, not just for money, but more of everything created an aspiration gap for themselves where they wouldn?t allow themselves to feel happy until they reached their goals, but as soon as they achieved them, they set new goals for more stuff. The good life always stays out of reach when you play this game.
Your genes account for between 44% to 55% of your happiness levels. It seems that we all have a set point for our happiness, much like the infamous weight thermostat we have. There is good news and bad news in this. The good news is that automatically, eventually we will get back to our normal happiness levels. The bad news is that changing the happiness thermostat in the long term is difficult at best. Becoming more extroverted for example has an effect on making people happier. Hanging with friends more frequently gives you more positive socialization that increases your happiness levels.
Here is something else that is important?stop comparing your looks with others. Good-looking people really are happier .You can cash in on this by believing you look great. This is harder though than it sounds, but you can improve your looks by working out and having a good diet. As ex-dubs, almost all of us had low self-esteem. Learning to appreciate how beautiful we are is one way to increase our happiness.
Your relationships with others are very important in making for long-term life satisfaction. Having good friends, even online friends are a step in the right direction. Most people have heard though that to be even happier, you need to be married. The big question though is does marriage make you happy, or are happy people simply more likely to get married. Both seem to be true.
The marriage effect begins before the marriage (when the couples fall in love) and lasts about a year afterwards, and then happiness levels return to their baseline. This doesn?t mean that there is no longer any further benefits and most researchers think that a good marriage increases life happiness. However a bad marriage brings you way down in the pits. Well that is pretty self-evident isn?t it?
Having a belief system of some type makes people happier. There have been dozens of studies that have linked religion to happiness with a positive result. We know that believing in God or an afterlife give people meaning and purpose and reduce their feeling of being alone in the world. You can also add in the social support network that religion brings to the table and people get a lot of satisfaction out of helping others.
None of this means that you need to become an evangelical Christian to be happier. Being involved in your community, helping out others in times of need, and altruistic behavior in general increase happiness levels.
There is a lot of other useful information on the topic of adapting your life to become happier. I suggest these resources to learn more:
Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman
http://www.authentichappiness.org/perl/My_Home.pl
Hopefully something here was of value,
Skipper