The Importance of Being Happy and Content

Discuss about the Importance of happiness in life.

Life is all about struggles and success, happiness and sadness, hard times and happy times in equal shares (Uysal et al., 2014). The happiness of life should not be dependent on any external or internal factors like success in the job or getting good marks in the exam or getting employed or promotion. Happiness must come from within and not depend on others. This report contains about a video by the anchor Mr. Shawn Achor (2018), who talks about human nature in dealing with happiness and also suggests how to be happy and its good effects of being happy on the body and mind. This report thoroughly investigates about the factors affecting the happiness and how to positive in every situation. This report also covers some other topics like positive psychology, medical school syndrome, the science of happiness and trends of happiness in an individual.

The main target of life should be being happy and content with whatever we have. People tend to chase their dreams of being successful in life and make the happiness dependent on the level of success. I chose this topic as it focuses on the factors affecting the happiness of our lives and human behaviour that tends to value success and monetary gains over happiness in life. I want everyone to know that happiness and satisfaction are directly related to the mental and physical health of any individual, happier a person is, less the number of physical and mental disorders in an individual.

Many important topics were discussed like positive psychology, normal and average or abnormal and better individual, medical school syndrome, the science of happiness, trends of happiness and training of the brain. According to (Ciarrochi & Kashdan (2013), being positive in the hard and tough situations is very much important as it can result in the ease of pressure from any individual and it also helps to be a better and confident person. Studying the positive side of a person helps in being positive for example knowing the reason for someone’s happiness and feeling good about it can bring the positivity out of the person. Medical school syndrome is a condition reported in the medical students mostly in the second year of their studies where they complain about symptoms of those diseases they are studying in their curriculum. According to Waterman & Weinman (2014), this syndrome mainly occurs due to the fear of contracting those diseases read about.

Factors Affecting Happiness

The choice between normal and average or abnormal and better individual should be natural for everyone. While studying a set of qualities among people, we tend to follow up the average scheme of things between them and discard the ‘outliers,’ who don’t fit the average scheme or graph. Focusing on the average qualities of the people would decrease the chances to foster the unique and better qualities from the above average people.  The trend of happiness of the people has been a debatable topic. Most of the people’s happiness depends on the success; it is directly proportional to the amount of success an individual is. This results in the decrease of satisfaction between the people in search of monetary success. People who believe that happiness comes with success are susceptible to negative and insecure life. According to (Lyubomirsky & Layous (2013), happiness is a self-intended ideology, if I believe that I am happy with whatever I have with me, my body and mind would be able to react positively towards it and be happy. The current trend shows that after achieving success, people tend to shift their goals further instead of being happy and satisfied with what he has accomplished, makes happiness a distant feeling. For example, a child getting good grades sets a new goal to better the score next time instead of being content with the current marks. We should know that success depends on happiness and not the vice versa. Training your brain to be happy by recognizing every simple and positive thing and scenarios in life can make a difference.

Yes, I can relate to this on a personal level as it directly states the ways to be happy. I don’t need to depend on anything externally for being happy rather I should be happy with what I have and what I have achieved till now. Many in this world will be happy to switch places with me, so I should be grateful and happy for what I have. Watching this video, I realized that my happiness depends upon the marks I get in my examination or the appreciation I get from the teachers. I totally agree with the message of the video that happiness should not be confined to the success of some goals rather happiness should be there for everything I have achieved till date.  

I believe that my philosophies and beliefs did change after watching this video because I always believed that achieving new things in life can give happiness to me and others associated with me. Self-expectation and expectations from my family members, relatives and friends always have an extra burden on me to perform well and bring desired results and achieve expected and desired goals. After watching this video, I realize that my happiness should not be planned for future goals rather I should be happy in the present for everything I have. Overthinking about expectations was hampering my happiness in the present. I have decided not to be over think about others expectations of me instead enjoy my study and score good marks for my own sake. Doing things for the sake of others won’t be an issue for me now.

Positive Psychology

Yes I found the message powerful and challenging due to the instances are given by the speaker for example, when his sister went to sleep thinking that she was a unicorn, this made me realize that I can be happy and satisfied if I positively change my thinking. There is a proverb “half glass empty or half glass full” which means it is our choice that we consider a half-filled glass as half full or half empty. The mentioned proverb means that it is our choice that we consider the positive things in life which is there or we consider those things which are not present in life and be negative and sad about that. The message and suggestion from the speaker Mr. Shawn Achor compelled me to take the challenge of noting down three things that I am grateful in life for 21 consecutive days and expect a positive change in mind.

Conclusion:

Happiness should come from within and should not depend on many factors. It does not have any terms and conditions, and everyone has the right to be happy. Being positive is a great way to be happy in life. Positivity has a significant advantage over the mental and physical health of an individual, and every individual should try to be positive in every situation of life. Having positive psychology within can bring positivity and enhance a positive behaviour in the individual. The medical syndrome is just an assumption where medical students think about the symptoms of a disease they are studying in their curriculum can be avoided by thinking rational and being positive. Most of the problems in life can be solved by being positive and finding happiness in everything, be it small or big. Happiness is directly related to the mental and physical health of an individual and also helps in gaining success in life.     

References:

Achor, S. (2018). The happy secret to better work. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work#t-3029

Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., Aaker, J. L., & Garbinsky, E. N. (2013). Some key differences between a happy life and a meaningful life. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 8(6), 505-516.

Caprara, G. V., & Steca, P. (2005). Affective and social self-regulatory efficacy beliefs as determinants of positive thinking and happiness. European Psychologist, 10(4), 275-286.

Ciarrochi, J., & Kashdan, T. B. (2013). Mindfulness, Acceptance, and Positive Psychology. In The foundations of flourishing (pp. 1-29). New Harbinger Publications Oakland.

Lyubomirsky, S., & Layous, K. (2013). How do simple positive activities increase well-being?. Current directions in psychological science, 22(1), 57-62.

Probst, T., Lambert, M. J., Loew, T. H., Dahlbender, R. W., & Tritt, K. (2015). Extreme deviations from expected recovery curves and their associations with therapeutic alliance, social support, motivation, and life events in psychosomatic in-patient therapy. Psychotherapy Research, 25(6), 714-723.

Sirgy, M. J., Gurel-Atay, E., Webb, D., Cicic, M., Husic-Mehmedovic, M., Ekici, A., … & Johar, J. S. (2013). Is materialism all that bad? Effects on satisfaction with material life, life satisfaction, and economic motivation. Social indicators research, 110(1), 349-366.

Thomsen, D. K., Olesen, M. H., Schnieber, A., & Tønnesvang, J. (2014). The emotional content of life stories: Positivity bias and relation to personality. Cognition & emotion, 28(2), 260-277.

Uysal, R., Satici, S. A., Satici, B., & Akin, A. (2014). Subjective Vitality as Mediator and Moderator of the Relationship between Life Satisfaction and Subjective Happiness. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice, 14(2), 489-497.

Waterman, L., & Weinman, J. (2014). Medical student syndrome: fact or fiction? A cross-sectional study.