What is happiness?
Happiness, in psychology, is a state of emotional well-being that a person experiences either in a narrow sense, when good things happen in a specific moment, or more broadly, as a positive evaluation of one’s life and accomplishments overall—that is, subjective well-being.
People strive to attain happiness, yet different people have different definitions of what it is. The majority of individuals often refer to their current mood or a broader sense of how they feel about life in general when they discuss what happiness really is.
While perceptions of happiness may be different from one person to the next, there are some key signs that psychologists look for when measuring and assessing happiness.
Some key signs of happiness include:
- Feeling like you are living the life you wanted
- Going with the flow and a willingness to take life as it comes
- Feeling that the conditions of your life are good
- Enjoying positive, healthy relationships with other people
- Feeling that you have accomplished (or will accomplish) what you want in life
- Feeling satisfied with your life
- Feeling positive more than negative
- Being open to new ideas and experiences
- Practising self-care and treating yourself with kindness and compassion
- Experiencing Gratitude
- Feeling that you are living life with a sense of meaning and purpose
- Wanting to share your happiness and joy with others
The full spectrum of human feelings, including frustration, loneliness, boredom, and grief, may still affect happy people. But despite their suffering, they retain a sense of hope that things will improve, that they can manage the situation, and that they will soon be able to smile once more.
Happiness is not something that you possess, my husband once told me. It is something who you share with. I wholly agree with it.
We enjoy sharing happiness with our loved ones. It can only be a brief moment or period of time that we enjoy among those who matter to us rather than own.
Studies have found that people tend to over earn—they become so focused on accumulating things that they lose track of actually enjoying what they are doing.
So, rather than falling into the trap of mindlessly accumulating to the detriment of your own happiness, focus on practising gratitude for the things you have and enjoying the process as you go.
scarlette's whisper 