I’ve been thinking about happiness lately.

Is it a hedonistic pursuit? Is it the ultimate human pursuit? Is it something our chemical make-up graces us with, or condemns us to be without? Is it a natural by-product of a simple life?

I looked around the web a bit and found that psychologists have been slow to study “happiness” because of stigma. There was respect to be earned by discovering the causes of depression or other mental/emotional pains but ridicule to play in the fields of understanding happiness.

According to Alison Stein Wellner and David Adox’s article, “Happy Days - positive psychology movement” published May, 2000 in Psychology Today,

in the psychological literature over the last 30 years, there have been 54,040 abstracts containing the keyword “depression,” 41,416 naming “anxiety,” but only 415 mentioning “joy”.

My perspective of life tends towards the understanding that we create our reality. Where we focus our thoughts and our intentions is where our life will flow. If I focus on negativity, it shall reproduce. If I focus on positivity, it shall reproduce. Therefore, I’m grateful to Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., founder of the Positive Psychology movement. From the Executive Summary page:

Positive Psychology is founded on the belief that people want more than an end to suffering. People want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.

Thanks, Dr. Martin!

I also found a number of articles written, with the theme of happiness, published in fall 2005 in The Times (UK). One of the fascinating assertions about when we experience happiness from Libby Purves’ article, “Happiness is a work in progress”:

But wherever it [happiness] comes from, every life needs those moments of pure and perilous balance: a neat, sweet coming together of control and risk and effort and exultation. That is the peak of happiness. The lower slopes and green valleys lie around it, with their harvest of mild daily contentments: company, mutuality, family, freedom from envy and rancour and self-contempt. We need ordinary things too. But the valleys are weary and sour if there is no mountaintop.

Here’s another perspective from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s, “The Secrets of Happiness”. (By the way, he co-edited, along with Dr. Martin EP Seligman, a special edition of American Psychologist dedicated to Positive Psychology published in January 2000) He did a number of studies and found that:

The most obvious component of happiness, I found out, is intense concentration, which is the main reason that activities such as music, art, literature, sports and other forms of leisure have survived. The essential ingredient for concentration — whether it happens when reading a poem or building a sand castle — is that it involves a challenge that matches one’s ability.

I especially like the last part, “it involves a challenge that matches one’s ability.” To me that says: being totally engaged in a situation–a lively, active time. I remember when my old beau, Scott, was taking Religious Studies course on the spiritual experience (I don’t remember the specifics, it was over 15 years ago) and he asked me about a time in which I felt at peace, content, happy. I immediately thought about all of the afternoons I had spent at the stable with my horse. It didn’t matter if I was riding, mucking the stall, grooming, or cleaning the tack. Every day was new, unpredictable, and, yes, “involved a challenge that matched my ability.”

I’m still a bit amazed at the whole lot of information found. I look forward to incorporating it into letting it be easy. I’d love to hear about your thoughts/experiences re: happiness in the context of the above info.

“If only we’d stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.”
–Edith Wharton