I’m a big believer in following in the footsteps of successful people. One of my strategies for success and happiness is to find an appropriate mentor and learn from their victories – and their failures. There are many factors, environmental and biological that may effect our quality of life but if you’re like me, and tend to lean towards a “glass half-empty” mindset, you know that making the conscious choice to stay positive is one of the greatest tools we have to enjoy life to the fullest in the here and now.
This article by Justine van der Leun that appeared on AOL Health reinforces my belief that happiness is a skill that can improve with practice. Don’t take it from me, though. Take it from Matthieu Ricard – the man scientists say is the happiest person on Earth.
Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard claims you can practice your way to happiness, and he should know: After MRI scans showed that he experienced extreme levels of positive emotions and few negative ones, he became known as “the happiest man in the world.” Trained as a cell biologist in France, Ricard moved to the Himalayas in 1972 to study Buddhism. He’s now a translator, a photographer and the Dalai Lama’s French interpreter. His books — the proceeds of which go to 41 humanitarian projects in the remote Himalayas — include “The Monk and the Philosopher” (a dialogue with his father, a famed philosopher), “Happiness: a Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill,” and, most recently, “Why Meditate?” AOL Health spoke with Ricard about the cultivation of happiness, the benefits of altruism and how 30 silent minutes a day can change your life.
Do you think you’re the happiest man in the world?
It’s better than the unhappiest person in the world. It was a cover line on a Buddhist independent journal. Of course it’s cute, but it doesn’t rest on scientific evidence. I took part in some ongoing studies on compassion. It’s a jump to say my results mean that.
What is happiness?
Happiness is a way of being rather than an endless search for experiences. Pleasure is fine but depends on things that are subject to change: people, places, things. Something tastes good; fire warms you when you’re cold. But then this experience turns neutral or averse: Even the most beautiful music is unpleasant after 24 straight hours. But happiness is a more durable state. It’s a cluster of basic human qualities that nurture a state of fulfillment, flourishing, of appreciating your life. It’s inner freedom, inner strength, inner peace. These are the resources to deal with the struggles of life. The more you experience happiness, the deeper and more stable it becomes.
We really don’t have to be a “Psychic Friend” to predict the future. If you want to know what your future will be like, just take a look at the choices you are making today. Often we find that if we really take a hard look at our life, we will come to understand that if there is some situation in which we feel “stuck,” the trail of suspects on which to lay the blame can be traced right back to our own doorstep. There are no victims, only volunteers. The good news there is that if we got ourselves into the “mess” we can get ourselves out of it.
The first rule of “holes” is – if you are in one, STOP DIGGING! It’s always encouraging, really, to talk to a friend who is at the end of their rope with a situation that is making them miserable. The gift of desperation is quite a motivator to spark determination to make the necessary and difficult changes needed. It is also good to remember that the real work is an inside job. The happiest people I know are spiritual pioneers who approach from the inside-out because they know they make better choices when operating at a higher life condition. Ideally, happiness is a state of life, not a state of circumstances.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know that I am a big proponent of the scientific studies about happiness and do a lot of reading about how to make positive choices and training the brain to be “solution minded.”
“It requires some effort to achieve a happy outlook on life, and most people don’t make it.”
—Author and researcher Gregg Easterbrook
Psychologists have recently handed the keys to happiness to the public, but many people cling to gloomy ways out of habit, experts say, “What gives?” Here’s a real interesting article from LiveScience: By Robin Lloyd
Psychologists have recently handed the keys to happiness to the public, but many people cling to gloomy ways out of habit, experts say.
Polls show Americans are no happier today than they were 50 years ago despite significant increases in prosperity, decreases in crime, cleaner air, larger living quarters and a better overall quality of life.
So what gives?
Happiness is 50 percent genetic, says University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken. What you do with the other half of the challenge depends largely on determination, psychologists agree. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
It seems money does buy happiness but the catch is only if you don’t spend the money on yourself.
Elizabeth Dunn, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, led a research study that concluded people who spent money on others through charitable donations or gifts had a greater level of happiness than those who spent money solely on them.
People who are generous are more socially connected and are happier in general. This could be attributed to the greater feeling of connectedness to a larger community that accompanies altruistic behavior.
The Dunn study is yet another in an ever-growing body of research that finds that helping others is a sure-fire way to help yourself.
Ironically, “There’s so much benefit to the person who contributes to others that I often think that there is no more selfish act than a generous act,” said Tal Ben-Shahar, author of the book “Happier.”
Ben-Shahar teaches a course on happiness at Harvard which is the University’s most popular class. During the first week of class, students are tasked to do five small acts of kindness a day that range from giving change to homeless people, to being nice to waiters, to calling their grandparents. “The effect of it is quite remarkable and lasts for much longer than a day,” he said.
Studies of happiness have long found that, unless people are extremely poor, getting more money brings surprisingly slight gains in positive feelings.
Marketers are constantly bombarding us with the message that money does buy happiness in spite of the proven truth that people tend to be made happier by experiences rather than by possessions.
Again the research shows that the happiness we get from buying, say, a new car quickly diminishes and fades away as we become face the responsibilities that comes with ownership. While taking a friend out to lunch, say, is more of an experience, and more likely to produce longer-lasting good feelings.
In the later scenario, there are other mechanisms at play such as, a kind act may lead to the perception that people are grateful, and that is linked with happiness. Also, there are social consequences when people act kindly such as enhanced relationships and the tendency for people to reciprocate.
Generosity is hard-wired into our brains. Jordan Grafman, chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a division of the National Institutes of Health used a technique called functional MRI which reveals the brain structures that are most active when people perform certain mental tasks.
They weren’t surprised that the brains lit up when people received money, but what they also found was donating to charities lit up the brain’s reward circuits even more than receiving cash.
With the backing of science, let’s get out there and make the world a better place for others – and ourselves.
What does it say about a culture whose media reports round the clock coverage of an entertainer who grew before our eyes from an adorable, talented child into a tragic caricature of a tortured artist? For one thing, it says that culture needs a serious wake-up call about what it values as successful.
We are alive during a time in society that is the spiritual equivalent of the TV show “Supermarket Sweep.” This was the old game show where contestants would have a limited time to run through a store stuffing purchases into their shopping carts, while menaced by monsters that stalked the isles. The winner would be the contestant whose items would add up to the higher monetary value. This premise may make for a fun 30-minute contest, but it isn’t a great model for a successful life.
While parents may tell their children that “happiness comes from within” or “it’s the thought that counts” when it comes to gift giving, the messages from our culture are mixed.
We all like creature comforts, but there is a big difference between the pursuit of pleasure and the pursuit of happiness. Happiness cannot be found in the ability to string together a never-ending list of pleasurable moments – it truly has to come from within.
The life and death of Michael Jackson speaks to this. Here was a talented man who was rich enough to indulge all his whims and surround himself with innumerable objects of distraction, however bizarre or obscure. Yet, all one has to do is look at his self-inflicted disfigured face to know that he was a man who self-esteem was seriously damaged.
His penchant for plastic surgery speaks volumes about the pain he undoubtedly felt being in his own skin. Of course, his money did buy him many willing accomplices to go along with a distorted plan that left his face looking like a puppet that was caught in a house fire.
