Happy

What does it mean to be happy? Many people associate the term with wealth, power, and money.

"If only I had (amount of money), I would feel much better"

"If only I could afford to live in (this place), life would be easier"

By listening and observing, I have found that to attain happiness, people must strive to make more money. By this sound statement, one would assume that developed countries such as japan and America would then rate the highest on the happiness scale. However, that is not the case.

Japan ranks as the unhappiest nation. This is due to the extreme stress that they place on themselves to be #1 in technology, GNP. And everything else (except happiness). The people living in happen are stresses consumed and work oriented. All they care about is creating the next marketable item. Lives are cut shorter, illnesses arise, and no one seems happy. Americans, who are not as bad off as Japan, we still rank low on the happiness level. In the documentary they state that people who work s cart-pushers and live in a slum in a developing nation rant the same as the average American.

How is it that people living on a "day-to-day" basis and lack education, security and a decent job can compete with the status of an American who has a satisfactory job, security, home and all of their basic needs met and may even have part of their immediate future planned out?

The problem is that people in developed countries have a consumer mentality. They are product driven and if they don't have the new "item" they are not satisfied with themselves. The documentary points out that the cart pusher felt like the richest person when he saw his son happy. In places such as these, people are driven my family, health and individual pleasures. Their focus is not on monetary wealth. They do struggle financially, yet their other basic needs are covered; they feel happy.

What are the benefits of being happy?

Happiness can help you achieve your goals. Think about it, the happier you are the more positive your attitude is going to be so you will find a way to reach your goals.

How to measure/improve?

First off, the documentary explained that happiness was found in our genes. As humans, we have a natural "set-point” of (50% of our state) happiness. 10% of our happiness comes from our job/social stature/age. etc. 40% comes from intentional behavior. What this is ensuring us is that people force themselves in to a dark place. 40% of your mood is controlled by your own behavior. If it were modified a bit, everything regarding your life would be different.

We need to each our zone of happiness. Exercise and a healthy diet can help us achieve our goal.

Focusing on what you have and not what you don't. If you concentrate on the items that are not present in your life, you are constantly reminding yourself that you are missing something; this leads to a feeling of emptiness which makes someone depressed.

To have values and goals make it easier to focus on happiness. It’s you key to happiness because everything becomes intrinsic. Your natural drive will lead you to happiness because you follow your goals.

Adaptation; Hedonic adaptation is when you are not satisfied with that you have. This is the biggest threat to happiness. This goes in line with focusing on what you have. If you don't feel content with what you have, you develop a sense of inferiority. You base the idea that you aren’t good enough or you don't deserve the items that are missing from your life. This is the biggest problem in industrialized consumer-based societies.

Happy was a pleasant documentary that was a bit boring at times (hey, I have to be truthful). However, it did provide insightful information in a concise fashion that made sense. It helped my develop an understanding of my mood and view the problems that arise from my own faults.