World Happiness Day 2023
On this day of world happiness, I’m thinking of all the people in the world for whom day to day survival is a struggle. We each have our own multi-faceted lives, with struggles and triumphs, inevitable highs and lows. It’s not about avoiding the ups and downs, it’s about how well we deal with the challenges of life which set the scene for our happiness.
Even defining what the word happiness means is fraught with difficulty. It means different things to different people. It means different things to us at different stages of our lives. For most people working in the field of wellbeing, happiness is often thought of as being how highly people rate their wellbeing in terms of satisfaction with life, how positive or negative they feel about their lives, and what they feel about their sense of meaning and purpose in life. My father’s old pocket dictionary uses the words fortunate and content to define happy.
One definition offered by Sonja Lyubomirsky, in her book, “The How of Happiness” (1) is that happiness is an experience of joy, contentment or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful and worthwhile. She reminds us that in boosting our happiness or sense of wellbeing, we also boost our energy levels, leading to more and higher quality engagement with life and with other people. Happiness is not something we achieve alone. We are a social species and the primary lesson from the longest study on happiness, The Harvard Grant Study, is that the quality of our relationships is the most important factor in boosting and maintaining our happiness. We know that laughter is a great social glue. It binds us together and we laugh much more when we are in the company of others. Sharing laughter is a great way to improve the quality of our relationships and having fun together, introducing some playfulness into our routines, is a great way to do this.
In her book “The Myths of Happiness” (2), Lyubomirsky talks about things that people feel should make them happy, but don’t and also things that shouldn’t make them happy but do. The book is packed full of ideas, two of which stand out significantly for me. Firstly, the myth of “I’ll be happy when X or Y happens, or when I get X or Y (money, fast car etc.). Happiness doesn’t come when it is dependent on something we are looking for in the future. It is an everyday endeavour, based in the here and now. Secondly, if we appreciate that relationships need work to survive and thrive and that positive emotions are important in building and strengthening connection, we can better invest in the rewarding work of relationship maintenance and improvement. Shared moments of joy and amusement give us a boost at the time and also lay down powerful memories to draw upon in the future. That is not to say that we strive only for positivity; there is a place for negativity and caution. Recognising and dealing with the challenges in our lives helps us feel more in control.
What is clear is that we can make ourselves unhappy by the relentless pursuit of happiness and worry over whether we are as happy as we can be. Having constant happiness as a personal goal may not be the best way to achieve contentment. Examining and creating more meaning and purpose in our lives, cultivating supportive relationships and giving to others may be more helpful in growing not only our happiness, but the happiness of those we care for.
Wishing you a happy World Happiness Day.
Anna
1 Lyubomirsky, S. 2007. The How of Happiness. Piatkus.
2 Lyubomirsky, S. 2013. The Myths of Happiness.