Summary Of Balanced Psychology And A Full Life

Lyubomirsky defines happiness as the “experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile” (184). She challenges the myths that people can find happiness by changing their circumstances and that people either are “born happy or unhappy” (186). Happiness is not something that can be found or something that not everyone can have. People make their own happiness, despite the difficulties they may face. Happiness comes by “choosing to change and manage your state of mind” (185). Lyubomirsky gives cases of people who are happy even though they suffer from losses and setbacks. These are the people whose circumstances should make them unhappy, but their intentional actions bring them joy. She also gives cases of people who have not suffered any major losses but are still unhappy because they may see events negatively and feel helpless before them. Lyubomirsky asserts that “changes in our circumstances, no matter how positive and stunning, actually have little bearing on our well-being” (186). Even though a person’s circumstances may be positive, those circumstances do not make them happy. Lyubomirsky uses a Subjective Happiness Scale to measure happiness, which takes the average of numerical answers to four questions. She argues that in order to become happier, “you need to determine your present personal happiness level, which will provide your first estimate of your happiness

Summary: This article is written by Martin E.P Seligman, and is largely about the modern

The best way to achieve happiness would be by using the 3 aspects of philosophy created by Sam Berns. These three aspects to the philosophy are as follows,1)accepting flaws in oneself,2) Surrounding yourself with people whom you want to be around and lastly,3)Keep moving forward. As simple as it may seem to be contempt with yourself;it’s not. Loving yourself or being fully competent with the flaws you own can either make you or break you, it’s a constant work in progress. If you surround yourself with people who ultimately care about your well being and who support

In “Happiness 101,” Harvard professor Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar presents his ideas pertaining to the achievability of happiness. He begins by discussing how individuals must give themselves permission to be human, so that they can feel the negative feelings before they reach the positive feelings. If negative feelings are held back without release, then they only intensify eventually blocking out the positive feelings. Ben-Shahar continues his presentation to the topic of managing stress on the micro, mezza, and macro levels. These levels include the ideas of meditation, sleep, taking time off, vacations, and the “three deep breaths.” Simplifying agendas and practicing quality over quantity has a positive effect on stress levels as well. At the conclusion of his presentation, Ben-Shahar discusses the positive effect of practicing gratitude on health, happiness, and well-being. After listening to Tal Ben-Shahar’s presentation, I completely agree with every point that Ben-Shahar uses over the topics of giving permission to be human, stress management, and practicing gratitude covered throughout his presentation over happiness.

From the perspective of positive psychology, there is a well-being formula invested by Martin Seligman to achieve a higher well-being. Martin Seligman (2010) defined as happiness: H (to maintain the length of happiness) = S (happy range breadth) + V (you can control the factors) + C (your living environment). Happy length: the distinction between "temporary" happy and "persistent" happy. Temporary happiness can be achieved by food, comedy, bunch of flowers. While the persistence of happiness is mainly affected by genetic, and this genetic trait can be changed. The breadth of happiness: psychologists think that we are born with a happy constant point, like a thermometer. If there is a happier thing, even if we are upset, it will be dedicated

plan for the future. When you recall memories and plan for the future, it makes you happier.

Happiness can be seen through food, how one self looks, and family. Being able to eat an enjoyable meal could bring back memories of when oneself first ate it. Food could also bring back happy moments with friends and family that could create a huge smile on ones face. When someone has a good hair day it make their day ten times better. Having a great outfit also brings up someone's mood because they look great, they will feel great. Also, there is always something about being with family that can always put a smile on ones face. Spending time with family can bring back so many great memories and could also create new happy

Bryant, F. B., Smart, C. M., & King, S. P. (2005). Using the past to enhance the present: Boosting happiness through positive reminiscence. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6(3), 227-260.

There are many distinctive definitions when it comes to the word happiness. Two psychologists, in particular, are thoroughly investigating the science behind this feeling. Barbara Fredrickson, who wrote the essay, Selections from Love 2.0: Love, Our Supreme Emotion, focuses on formulating positive connections with people through micro-moments. She believes that these conscious interactions are beneficial to positive resonance and to our mental well-being. On the contrary, Daniel Gilbert, who wrote the essay Immune to Reality, discusses how our brain exploits the ambiguity of bad experiences and unconsciously “softens its sting.” By doing so, we become immune to reality. Even though Fredrickson believes that accumulating conscious

The pursuit of happiness is an endless journey that we all experience during our lifetime. This search for satisfaction in life is made up of actions and choices that we make to benefit our lives for the better, even if done subconsciously. Many people try to end this lifelong journey short by reaching a practically unachievable “true happiness”, and some even get so caught up in trying to reach this ultimate fulfillment in life, that they begin to forget about the great things currently in their lives because they spend so much time and energy focusing on what they want rather than what they have. Life is about enjoying living in the moment, because it only happens once.

“Beyond Happiness: The Upside of Feeling Down” article by Matthew Hutson explains that negative emotions often have a pessimistic stigma. Normally when one addresses fear, anger, guilt, and regret, a positive outlook is not the first thing that comes to mind. Because these emotions are mostly negative, people try to not act on them or conceal them when trouble arises; however, acting on these emotions can bring a positive feeling. Hutson sheds light on why anger, shame, envy, fear, and grief should not be looked at as “negative” emotions all the time, rather they should just be looked at as emotions.

No one question the positive effect of feeling good, but are there any benefits from unpleasant emotions? It seems that people has been chasing for good mood in the last 2 decades, but there are several people trying to find positive influences for feeling bad underneath. In the Psychology Today article “Beyond Happiness: The Upside of Feeling Down” (2015), Hutson focuses his attention on the how human beings benefit themselves from negative emotions. Hutson has some strong point that there are many positive effects from negative emotions, which are expressing anger is good in negotiation, guilt can motivate individuals to fix the mistake, and envy is one of the motivation to drive people to success.

According to authors Kottler and Chen, domains for enhancing happiness are relationships, environment, physical state, productivity, recreation, and distressing emotions. In addition, strategies that are related to these enhancements of happiness are finding a romantic partner, securing reasonable physical and financial safety and comfort, periodically enjoying fine weather, living in a stimulating environment (based on one’s value), eating healthy, engaging in regular physical exercise, achieving success and approval at work that is interesting and challenging, working towards a coherent set of goals, making leisure activities a priority, diversifying one’s life with multiple interests, experimenting with new and exciting options, avoiding distressing situations when possible, focusing on the positive as much as one can and practicing compassion and empathy toward others.

Experiences form “Powerful and important memories that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world” (Gilovich 2). Happiness can come and go but in that moment of joy, you feel infinite and amazing which is why memories and experiences are so important, because we look back at them and smile at ourselves wishing we could go back in time to that specific moment, That is the great thing about happiness, you can eventually make new memories and have new experiences that make you happy or even happier in the near future.

Our emotions and feelings play a major part in how we feel and think. Most of us are conditioned to believe that positive events, such as a raise or a financial windfall will increase our happiness, and it does but majority of us will fall back to the level of happiness we were before the positive events. Authentic happiness teaches us that in order to sustain lasting happiness, we must savor life’s joys, reflect on past accomplishments, and be grateful for everything and everyone in our life. If we commit ourselves to our goals and values we can all achieve authentic happiness.