The Philosophy Of Happiness

I came across a very eye-opening article, exploring the subject of Happiness. Here are some points I gathered..

When someone asks whether or not you think you're happy, they really put you on the spot. Are you really happy or whether, in accepting your contented, untroubled life, you've settled for too little? Can we be happy without knowing it, without even thinking about it?

Happiness is striking the right balance between contentedness and achievement. If you're happy, you see obstacles as opportunities. In such a state, you can even cope with criticism. Unhappiness is when you're not in control of your life. As a psychology professor says, "The more you are the cause of events in your own life, the better off you are."

So who is happy? We may imagine that men (who as the social group with more money, power and independence) are the happier lot, but surveys repeatedly show that women are the ones who have greater "life satisfaction".

A professor of philosophy and social science found that only 20% of "life satisfaction" for both men and women was determined by job satisfaction. What really counts is to be close to other people and to have the freedom to choose what we want to be, and to create our own priorities in life.

Perhaps that's why it's so hard to locate the source of happiness.

It is said that the biggest block we put on finding happiness for ourselves is the fear of taking responsibility for our own lives, fear of change, fear of confronting the unspoken rules that we have absorbed from our parents and society surrounding us.

Psychologists have discovered that happiness is found not in eliminating the sources of our discontent, but in positive action - learning a new skill or seeking new experiences, however mundane, and rising to challenges and being in control of some aspect of our lives, even if it's only which route to take home.

Side-stepping the situations that make us unhappy does not help, but coming to terms with our fears and insecurities leads us on the right road.

Happiness is as complicated or as simple as we make it. Now go and get the life you want...