Authentic Happiness (Part I)

The Happiness Equation

People have unique individual virtues and strengths. To some extent, your personality and, thus, your set range of happiness are inherited. In fact, about half of any element of personality depends on genetic heritage. Most people do have a set range of happiness, and despite extremes of good or bad fortune, they tend to return soon to their set range.

“Not only do happy people endure pain better, and take more health and safety precautions when threatened, but positive emotions undo the negative emotions.”

Consider some of the circumstances that many people think affect happiness:

Money - Wealth matters less than you might expect. People in wealthy countries (particularly democracies that allow a degree of personal freedom) tend to be somewhat more satisfied than people in poor or totalitarian countries, but even extreme poverty has little correlation with unhappiness. Strikingly, people whose main goal is money tend to be very unhappy.

 Marriage - Being married correlates strongly with happiness. National Opinion Research Center surveys find that roughly 40% of married people, but only 25% of unmarried people, are "very happy." This correlation may not indicate causality. It’s quite possible that happy people are simply more likely to get married.

 Sociability - More sociable people tend to be happier. Very happy people spend more time with others. However, causality is again questionable; perhaps, others simply prefer to spend time with happy people.

 Bad feelings - Women experience more negative and more positive emotions. Only a very small negative correlation exists between pleasant and unpleasant emotions.

 Youth - Young age does not correlate with happiness. In fact, older people are somewhat more satisfied with life than younger people.

 Health - Even terminally ill people have roughly the same life satisfaction as healthy people. Severe health problems cause less unhappiness than you might expect. Happiness does seem to drop when people have five or more serious health problems.

 Education, weather, race and gender - These factors do not have more than a slight correlation with happiness. Interestingly, African-Americans and Hispanics are less inclined to depression than Caucasians, but they are not happier than Caucasians.

 Religion - Religious people are happier and more satisfied than irreligious people. One study found that people from the most conservative religions (Orthodox Judaism, fundamentalist Christianity and Islam) are happier than people from more liberal religions (for example, Reform Judaism and Unitarianism).

“People who give up easily believe the causes of the bad events...are permanent - the bad events will persist, are always going to be there to affect their lives. People who resist helplessness believe the causes of bad events are temporary.”

To achieve happiness by changing your life circumstances: marry, think positively, make friends, help others, adopt a conservative religion and live in a reasonably prosperous democracy. However, in terms of becoming happy, statistically it does not help to earn more money, improve your health, get more education or move to a better climate.

I'll be posting part II shortly.

Have a HAPPY day!

Max Derecha