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sirdle wrote:I came across the following post again recently and thought I'd share.
sirdle wrote:Reflections on Happiness by Nathaniel Branden
The following thoughts, originally posted to an electronic mailing list, are now part of the introduction to Dr. Branden’s recent book, Taking Responsibility: Self-Reliance and the Accountable Life.
The Basic Disposition Toward Happiness
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There is a tendency for most people to explain feelings of happiness or unhappiness in terms of the external events of their lives. They explain happiness by pointing to the positives; they explain unhappiness by pointing to the negatives. The implication is that events determine whether or not they are happy. I have always suspected that our own attitudes have far more to do with how happy we are than any external circumstances. Today, research supports this view.
Take a person who is basically disposed to be happy, meaning that he is happy a significantly greater amount of the time than he is unhappy, and let some misfortune befall him — the loss of a job, or a marriage, or being hit by some physical disability — and for some period of time he will suffer. But check with him a few weeks or months or a year later (depending on the severity of the problem) and he will be happy again.
In contrast, take a person who is basically disposed to be unhappy, who is unhappy a significantly greater amount of the time than he is happy, and let something wonderful happen to him — getting a promotion, inheriting a lot of money, falling in love — and for a while he will be happy. But check with him a little later down the line and very likely he will be unhappy again.
Research also tells us that the best predictors of a person’s disposition to be happy are (1) self-esteem and (2) the belief that we ourselves, rather than external forces, are the most significant shapers of our destiny.
sirdle wrote:Reflections on Happiness by Nathaniel Branden
…
When I would ask her about her resilience, she would say, “I’m committed to being happy.” And she added, “That takes self-discipline.” She almost never went to sleep at night without taking time to review everything good in her life; those were typically her last thoughts of the day. I thought that this was important.
sirdle wrote:Reflections on Happiness by Nathaniel Branden
… Then I thought of something I had noticed about myself. And that was, as I sometimes joked, that with every decade my childhood kept getting happier. If you asked me at twenty or at sixty to describe my early years, the report would not have been different about the key facts, but the emphasis would have been different. At twenty, the negatives in my childhood were foreground in my mind the the positives were background; at sixty, the reverse was true. As I grew older, my perspective and sense of what was important about those early years changed.
Moonlight wrote:sirdle wrote:Research also tells us that the best predictors of a person’s disposition to be happy are (1) self-esteem and (2) the belief that we ourselves, rather than external forces, are the most significant shapers of our destiny.
I have read about this research before. Recently, I've been reading about joy. How we have joy in our lives. Do you have a reference for this research?
Moonlight wrote:sirdle wrote:When I would ask her about her resilience, she would say, “I’m committed to being happy.” And she added, “That takes self-discipline.” She almost never went to sleep at night without taking time to review everything good in her life; those were typically her last thoughts of the day. I thought that this was important.
I so agree with this! I feel that it is a combination of some setpoint which appears to be suggested from the research but I think it is also a choice. I recently heard a quote that resonated with me, "Joy is a choice."
Moonlight wrote:sirdle wrote:… Then I thought of something I had noticed about myself. And that was, as I sometimes joked, that with every decade my childhood kept getting happier. If you asked me at twenty or at sixty to describe my early years, the report would not have been different about the key facts, but the emphasis would have been different. At twenty, the negatives in my childhood were foreground in my mind the the positives were background; at sixty, the reverse was true. As I grew older, my perspective and sense of what was important about those early years changed.
I wonder if this change of attitude has to do with life experiences. As we age, many of us realize what is most important in life.
Moonlight wrote:Thank you for sharing!
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