Poetic, Inspirational Living

A Scientific American issue this year featured an article entitled The Science of Lasting Happiness that focused on how to not only achieve happiness, but how to sustain it in one’s life. For example, studies have shown that those who count their blessings every day in a “daily gratitude journal” are actually less happy than those who do so once a week. It appears that timing is critical, not overkill.

Additionally, Sonja Lyubomirsky, an experimental psychologist, says that there is actual work involved in staying happy. “A lot of people don’t apply the notion of effort to their emotional lives,” Lyubomirsky declares, “but the effort it takes is enormous.” This is important to keep in mind because when we feel unhappy, it is quite easy to allow ourselves to stay that way. The hard part comes in actively fighting bad feelings, though there are a number of ways to do so. (I suspect that many of the depression-buster tips from my previous post might come in handy.) The bottom line is that though there will always be unforeseen difficulty, generally speaking, we can only expect to be happy in our lives if we are willing to work to make it happen.