Two nights ago Dylan (my man friend) and I watched a documentary titled, Happy. I must say, I recommend it whole heartedly.
My sister watched it over Thanksgiving break, and recommended it to me. It was about what makes people happy. surprisingly its 50% genetics 40% situational and only 10% amounts to how much stuff you have, how successful you are, and the like. Dylan really liked it because there were scientific studies, phycologists, and diagrams of neurons. I really liked it because it made life seem a lot simpler.
I think I'm pretty good at being happy, about 75% of the time. I know that I'm not happy because of the 10% of stuff I have, because being a college student I'm broke as a joke. There are a lot of things that I want that I don't have(not to say that I don't consider myself wonderfully blessed and have more than all that I need), and because I haven't gone out into the world and done something with myself, there really isn't any success to speak of.
There is something that one of the psychologists in the movie called flow, which is when you are truly happy. He said you can find flow doing physical activities, playing music, or even at work. I think I'm just really good at finding the flow. It's almost instantaneous, and I know I'm lucky. I find the flow at school, because I love my major, and I think I'm good at it, I find flow in rolling pretzels at work, in fact, I'm in a "flow" right now.
The same psychologist explained that happiness is like a muscle, and the more you experience being happy, the happier that you can become. Which simply made me realize that I need to slow down and realize that I am happy, I have more than everything I need, and I really enjoy most things.
I think its interesting that happiness is like a muscle, but I also think it's infectious. They were showing so many people that had nothing, or had experiences some really hard trials in their life, and they were so happy! They were smiling, and laughing, explaining their meaningful relationships, and it made me happy. I'm pretty happy right now, just thinking about it.
Happiness is a choice, I firmly believe that. You can go through hard times, and terrible things can happen to you, but you can choose to be happy and have a good life; or you can choose not to. I know people very well that have physical disabilities, problems, clinical depression, and they can still find ways to be happy. I think that those people are really my heroes, even if they haven't done anything "successful." They have found ways to be happy in tough situations.
I am also not saying that if you are sad right now, or have gone through sad times in your life that you are not a good person. People need time to get over problems, deal with things that have happened in their life, they need to have time to understand that bad things do happen, and it is never fair. I'm also going to say that it does take time. But if you are having sad feeling all the time there is hope for you, there are people that you can talk to about it, and they make you feel better. Many times I feel overwhelmed or sad about things that have happened in my life, or to loved ones in my life and it doesn't seem fair at all. Many times when this happens to me, I pray, and I personally can find peace. Peace that passes all understanding. That makes me happy!
Anyways, I hope that all of you can find ways to be happy today.
What gives you "flow" or makes you happy?
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