Happiness Strategies | How to be Happy

The current issue of PsycCRITIQUES* reviews the film The Pursuit of Happyness from a positive psychology perspective. According to reviewer Ryan Niemiec, it stacks up pretty well.

If you haven’t seen the movie, and want a reminder of the value of persevering through hurdles while using your strengths for resourcefulness, then it might be worth finding the DVD. Be warned though – it’s not without great sadness.

Here’s an extract of the abstract of the review:

Abstract

Why is there so much talk these days about positive psychology – where did it all start?

Positive psychology is the scientific study of:

• - The pleasant life – having positive experiences
• - The engaged life – using your strengths in what you do to create a sense of ‘flow’
• - The meaningful life – contributing to something that gives your life purpose.

Interest in happiness and fulfillment dates back centuries, and research spans decades. But Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi really put the positive into positive psychology when they introduced a special issue of the journal American Psychologist in 2000. They urged readers (mostly psychologists) to go beyond the ‘exclusive focus on pathology that has dominated so much of our discipline’ (p. 5). This was a fair assessment of psychology up to that time – since WWII psychologists had dwelled on psychological disorder with little thought about what made people happier.

The call was heeded: In the seven years since that intro there’s been an explosion in positive psychology research and theory, leading to heaps of new books, journals and university programs.

Positive psychology has expanded psychology’s interest beyond simply diagnosing and treating problems – now there’s also a healthy focus on understanding and promoting well-being.

Image by José Miguel Serrano  under Creative Commons.

Aristotle* believed the aim of life is to be happy. But there’s a catch – to be happy, you have to be good. Fortunately, Aristotle wasn’t asking for perfect virtue. Instead he recommended a happy medium between opposites, believing neither extreme to be ideal.

So for instance, we should aim for:

• -Neither shame nor hubris, but healthy self-respect
• -Neither punishing self-discipline nor laziness, but concerted effort
• -Neither asceticism nor overindulgence, but moderation.

Aristotle disagreed with Socrates, who thought knowing what was right automatically leads to doing right. For Aristotle, you can know what you should do and still not do it.

More important than individual actions is how you live your life as a whole. Being on a virtuous path – one of balance and moderation – is the way to long-term happiness. 

Happiness strategies inspired by Aristotle

Being good: You can develop virtues, or personal strengths, by choosing a balanced approach. Take the example of getting fit. Some people join a gym, work out like maniacs till they get injured or can’t face another grueling workout, and then hang up their lycra for life. Consider adopting a more sustainable regime – and sticking to it.

Lifestyle: You can work excessive hours, earn an enormous income, and be wastefully extravagant. But you’re more like to find happiness by working, earning and spending a little less.

Pride: Are you incapable of saying or hearing a good thing about yourself? Or is there an unending stream of air from your lips to your trumpet? Aim for self-respect instead. A good way to respect yourself more is to do those old-fashioned, decent things – like being considerate of others when you use your mobile, throwing litter in bins, giving your best at work and being liberal with please, thank you and sorry.

We can get caught up in extremes - eating a cabbage soup diet all week and then finishing an entire box of Krispy Kremes; watching daily re-runs of Law & Order and then staying up all night to meet a deadline; regularly snapping at a loved one and then overpowering them with affection when they threaten to leave.

Instead, consider Aristotle’s encouragement to cultivate virtues and aim for balance. It’s a great way to put the happy into happy medium.

Read more philosophers ‘On Happiness’.

*To learn more about Aristotle, you might like to read The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View by Richard Tarnas.

At the shops today I heard this wonderful lyric – expressing what I believe about happiness – over the speakers:

I choose to be happy
So I am, so I am

Turns out it’s Belinda Emmett, who last year lost an eight-year battle with cancer -  first breast cancer and finally bone cancer. She’d been working on the album for several years and it was released posthumously in April 2007.

She sure had an excuse to choose to be miserable, making these lyrics all the more encouraging.

In one of those ‘gifts with purchase’ from Estee Lauder* I received a lipstick in a shade I loved. Alas, on only the second use it broke. I took it back to the department store counter but, since it was a promotional item, all I was offered in replacement was a tester. A used one.

Long story short, I contacted the company’s HO and they were happy to send me a replacement. For quality testing they asked me to drop the broken one off at the department store counter.

When I went there today with the broken lippie, the lady** I’d spoken to previously rushed to her bag and pulled out her own unused lipstick from the gift, and offered it to me. She’d brought it to the store in the hope I’d return soon. Can you believe it?

I assured her there was one on the way for me, but I felt like I got a second gift anyway.

People are so nice. 

*Not real company. Real company was Elizabeth Arden.

**Don’t know if she was a lady, but her name was Sharon.