I Live To Be Happy And Not To Be Ordinary
When it comes to living our lives, we repeat behaviors shaped by others as if they promise instant happiness. On the other hand, we really want to be different from others. But what makes us happy now?
Our society makes us believe that we can find stability in the ordinary and thus achieve well-being more quickly. Various studies on happiness have shown, however, that we get infected by positive, enthusiastic people who tend to engage in unusual activities and are therefore different from others, and that this actually increases our well-being. Doing something unusual gives us energy, allows us to see life from a new perspective, and to discover activities that suit us but that we have not tried before.
The greatest treasure of our time is to accumulate happiness. But it may well be that we are looking for happiness the wrong way, namely one that someone else has already walked. Copying and imitating the goals of our fellow human beings without even asking ourselves how they fit into our lives gives us a feeling of frustration over and over again.
“Real happiness is to enjoy the present without fear of the future.”
Seneca
Do you live to be happy
Paradoxically, obsessively searching for happiness can make us even more miserable. A study carried out by June Gruber, professor of psychology at Yale University (USA), showed that the constant search for happiness can trigger anxiety. This happens when people addicted to happiness are convinced that they have to do everything that means happiness for them, but that the first steps on the way to their goal do not bear fruit.
Therefore, if we want to be happy, we must try to be ourselves above all else. People who are true to themselves have good self-esteem. What is real is real, and what is authentic is trustworthy. For this reason, we should stop walking the usual trails for a while and seek our own. In the beginning it takes a lot of energy, but in retrospect everything will become easier because everything we see when we look back has to do with us. So we find ourselves in every memory that we encounter again.
We cannot be happy when we live other people’s lives. Everyone has their own personality traits and a unique idea of life.
In a 2008 study published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology , researchers from the UK showed that authentic people are the epitome of people who live happy lives. They found that people who are authentic have greater self-esteem and wellbeing. Authentic people not only take the time to reflect on their expectations in life and the experiences that have made them happy, but they also share their point of view with others. The majority do this with a positive attitude that protects personal, unique, and presentable work.
Happiness is not the product of what we do, but of a lifestyle.
If you want to be happy, you should be different from others
Doctor Tal Ben-Shahar, a professor at Harvard University (USA) and an expert in positive psychology, believes that joy can be learned. Just like you can learn to ski or play tennis, with technique and practice. His most important pieces of advice for feeling happy include quite unusual tips for increasing his well-being: Celebrating defeat, for example. Few people celebrate their defeats; they prefer to get annoyed when they fail to do something.
Tal Ben-Shahar believes that if we accept negative feelings, we can live more positively and happily. Not being able to forgive yourself would therefore be related to the development of mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem.
Happiness consists in locating what is really important and focusing on it.
Images courtesy of Mariana Kalacheva
