Measuring your life’s happiness

Why are some people happier than others?

We all have our own theories. According to one of America’s leading researchers on happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky, our theories may be on target. Nevertheless, her life mission is to conduct research that will offer scientific validation for conventional wisdom.

‘40-percent solution’A significant portion of our happiness is under our control, contends the author of “The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want.” For example, Lyubomirsky asked subjects in a 2006 study to think about happy life events for eight minutes for three consecutive days. As a result of their efforts, the participants felt “increased life satisfaction four weeks later than they had (experienced) prior to the study,” Lyubomirsky explained to reporter Amy Novotney of The Monitor.

Can thinking happy thoughts actually make people happier? Conventional wisdom seems to agree with the researcher’s findings. After being around a chronically miserable person, most readers probably reflected, “All this person does is complain and focus on the negative.” 

People could become happier, but there is a cost. For eight minutes a day, you need to focus on positive life events. Is this eight-minute challenge harder to accomplish than it seems? Yes, Lyubomirsky explains. Becoming happier requires discipline that is similar to staying on a diet. Even though dieters know that they should reduce eating and exercise more, actually doing these two things daily proves to be difficult.

Happiness: Don’t take it for granted
Happiness researchers believe that when people take up a new hobby in life, such as scrapbooking or playing bridge, they feel an initial surge of happiness. However, after about three months people begin to take their new hobbies for granted, and their level of life happiness dips to its prior level. This tendency to adjust to, and then take for granted, the positive conditions in our lives can be seen in every facet of life. For example, in the middle of winter Midwesterners are as happy as Californians who wake up to warm, ideal conditions. Why? People soon take their positive circumstances for granted.

When it comes to happiness, we should savor positive events and conditions more and adapt to them less, Lyubomirsky suggests. One activity that helps is expressing gratitude. For eight minutes every day reflect on the activities and circumstances you enjoy and the people whom you love. Actively fight the inclination to take for granted the most enjoyable people, activities and circumstances in your life.

Doing something for others
An assignment given by many counselors is “to do something good for another person without that person finding out who did it.” The goal is to change the focus of one’s thinking from centering on personal problems to focusing on the joy of giving to others.
Not allowing the recipient of one’s kindness to know its origin prevents clients from focusing on how the person responds. Simply observing or imagining the recipient’s happiness can be enough to alter the contributor’s happiness. The first time I mentioned this assignment to a class of counseling students, I received two anonymously given bouquets of flowers. I don’t know who gave them to me, but their generosity surely made my day!

Counselors believe this technique works, but I know of no research to support their claims. Sonja Lyubomirsky believes her research will either confirm or refute such theories.

“My prediction is that if people are trying to be happier, over time, not only are they going to feel happier but they will receive all of the benefits that come with happiness: Their relationships will improve, their creativity might improve, they might become more pro-social. Maybe they’ll even become better leaders and negotiators,” explained Lyubomirsky.

Until her research concludes, maybe we should discipline ourselves to spend eight minutes each day doing what our parents advised: “Count your blessings.”