Summary Of The 75-Year Study That Found The Secrets To A Happy Life

Lazy fall days, colorful leaves, cooler weather, birds singing, frogs croaking, crickets chirping, relaxing to the sounds of the outdoors. Waves of water crashing upon each other, fishing, telling stories around a campfire, making s’mores, memories with family and friends; this is what happiness is to me. Happiness is in the eye of the beholder, what brings happiness to one person may not bring happiness to another person. When I think of the word happiness, I think of descriptive words like Contentment, enjoyment, satisfaction, delightfulness, something that makes a person smile. I have always looked at the word happiness as a feeling, an action, never have I thought of happiness as an overall affect. However, it is a proven fact, that happiness can affect the over-all health and longevity of human life. Happy people live longer than those that are lonely, stressed, or depressed.

This idea of love extends to romantic relations, familial love, and love of interests: the universal components of life. Essentially, love’s importance for human flourishing spawns from the exclusivity as we will always prioritize that person or object above all else; thus, it enables humans to have a purposeful and consistent direction in life. We continue to attempt to maximize our fulfillment through focusing on the people and objects of our love. Furthermore, the limitations of time is the greatest constraint on humans; thus, an individual must decide which of their favorite fields and relationships should be further developed. And based on my experiences and observations, which are limited due to my lack of experience compared to an older person, an individual will choose the option that they love the most. Ergo, reinforcing the exclusiveness from the rest of the choices as they prioritized the option that they loved. Though it could be argued that many individuals later change their options throughout their lives as many people tend to change their careers and partners that they once loved. But, these changes could occur despite the individual’s choice. Some of the people may change careers due to the effects of the economy such as

The short story, The Right to Fail by William Zinsser, explains how it is acceptable to fail and learn from one's mistakes and to not go down the path society has made socially acceptable. Zinner has a positive outlook on the concept of failing, he explains, “Success can be dangerous- you feel you know it all. I’ve learned a  great deal from my failures.” As life goes on, everyone may not succeed the same way or even succeed at everything they attempt to do, but it is important to learn from mistakes and continue moving forward and to find the path that works for you. Trying new things and failing or succeeding can open new doors to something better.

Love can be whatever one makes it out to be. From basic science to a complex philosophical or mystical idea. A person’s own unique experiences with love make it a concept that is so widely perceived and interpreted. Throughout her piece, Selections from Love 2.0 Barbara Fredrickson tries to broaden her audience’s understanding to a new idea of love. Overall, she claims that love is a biological need. The claim that longevity and quality of life might have lots to do with not only ‘clean air and nutritious food’ but also ‘your supply of love’ are accurate to a certain extent. A constant supply of love is needed for a better quality of life but it is not necessarily needed to live a long life. If the claim is taken to be true, then a weak supply of love would result in a person just existing and not living life to their fullest or connecting to other human beings; therefore, they would be incomplete without it.

The speech “‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ Jobs says” by Steve Jobs (2005), states that no matter what obstacle may be in place, if one works hard they can pass it. Jobs was adopted until a working class family, who save every penny they had to send him to college. Even though Jobs managed to go to college, he couldn’t find something he enjoy yet. Instead of wasting his parent’s money on college, he decided to quit. He quit in order to find his dream that been hiding in the depths. One he quit, he started walking in class on classes, such as calligraphy where he learned about typography. Even

“Choose to be happy.” This is what mom has always said, since a very young age and still to this day she tells everyone. For so long, it was just “mom talk”, those things your mother says that is supposed to make you stop and think. Yet, being too young, dumb and full of it, to really understand what she means. Curiosity emerges and suddenly there is a need to understand what it really means to be happy, what constitutes Happiness? So follow up with some research, entering the bookstore, gliding in and out of the rows and rows in the self-help sections are others, asking the same question. What is happiness? Where does it come from, are we born with it or do we make it happen? Happiness is but a belief, an idea, a theory; but theories,

In life, no matter the quest, if you aim to succeed you must first fail. Failure, one of life’s profound professors, allows us to utilize our mistakes in a way that will create positive results in the future, that’s if you let it.

If we never fail, then we will never be able to truly succeed. Without having tasted failure, our accomplishments will never be as sweet; someone who has succeeded all of their life will be unable to enjoy their successes as much as someone who had to work through hardships and their own personal failures to achieve greatness. In our lives we can not grow as people without making mistakes and learning from them along the way.

Uchenna, I also believe that we choose our own destiny in life by the choices that we make. Ultimately, we are in control of our own happiness by the choices that we make. Success is measured differently by people. It may mean to some being wealthy or to others it may mean just being happy with the life you live. The road to happiness requires dedication, motivation, and sacrifices. In order to be truly successful, you have to be a strong willed person. In developing a life plan, you have to have balance in the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual areas of your life (Reece, 2014).

Many live attempting to decipher the riddle of life. What is life? What is the purpose? What makes? Even though we only seek happiness why can’t we ever seem to achieve it? When we do reach happiness why can’t we seem to grasp it and hold it for more than the few short hours that pass like seconds? The question we must answer first is “What makes happiness, true?”

Why is love so important in a person’s life? In society, love is such a vital aspect which most center their lives around. For many it is what creates meaning in their daily lives and what makes us continue to chose to live. People move across the country for love, do outrageous acts that declare their love, and spend their lives dedicating time, energy, and commitment to those they chose to love. “Love is what makes the world go round” because it is such a strong feeling of attachment we feel for our partners, children, and friends. As humans we have strong emotional needs and many make the mistake of ignoring when these needs are not being met.

It is human nature to want and desire certain things out of life. For the most part, people want the same things. No one is the same as anyone else but we all share the fact that we want to make our lives as good as we possibly can. There are many ways to achieve happiness and everything that is wanted out of life can make you happy. Whatever a person’s truest desire may be, if they obtain that desire they obtain happiness. All that is desired falls under “What will make you happy in life?” We long to be happy, but what gets us there?

Happiness may have diverse meanings to diverse individuals. But regardless of how we define happiness, our distinct passions and life experiences contribute in making each one of us cheerful. Undoubtedly, the secrets on how to live a happy and healthy life depends on how we sort out all the factors that play an imperative role in accomplishing the level of happiness we desire for ourselves.

It is common sense that all the human beings would like to live a happy life and they will spare no efforts in order to realize the purpose of really living a happy life in the end. However, different people have different definitions toward what a happy life is and they tend to have different standards as for how a life is that can be regarded as a happy life. There is no doubt that people will then try different means in order to pursue a happy life based on their definition toward what a happy life is. Therefore, the following will talk about the pursuit of a happy life from the perspectives of both Dalai Lama in The Art of Happiness and Viktor E. Frankl in Man’s Searching for Meaning, during which the experiences of some characters from the film Forrest Gump will be applied as evidence. Generally speaking, the pursuit of a happy life in the minds of Dalai Lama and Viktor E. Frankl can be achieved via experiencing sufferings and adversity. It is hoped that this analysis can help people understand what a happy is from a different point of view.

To choose your own future, destiny and life is very hard. Everyone wants to do something that makes them happy. But sometimes you take the wrong decisions or everything decides to go against you, which makes you stay in the box you were trying to escape from. When your dreams don’t get fulfilled, you will be in that box and wait for the light. It’s not always about what you want, but what you need. And to live a good life, and to do something productive, you have to work in a way that will make you happy, because that is what you need the most.