8 Secrets of Happiness , livre ebook

Lion Hudson - Martin Robinson

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84 pages

English

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Description

We are surrounded by innumerable products promising to make us more attractive, more healthy, more popular and more successful. But somehow, it's not quite enough - there's more to happiness than having a great job, designer clothes, a busy social life or a fat bank balance. This book guides you through the 8 secrets which psychologists have discovered to be the foundations of happiness, revealing a hidden dimension they all share. In an age of unprecedented wealth, coupled with unprecedented unhappiness and even depression, this book is a timely wake-up call.

Sujets

Self-help

Informations

Publié par	Lion Hudson
Date de parution	03 janvier 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780745959016
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Copyright 2009 Paul Griffiths and Martin Robinson This edition copyright 2009 Lion Hudson
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A Lion Book an imprint of Lion Hudson plc Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England www.lionhudson.com ISBN 978 0 7459 5239 8 (UK) ISBN 978 0 8254 7905 2 (US) e-ISBN 978 0 7459 5901 6
First edition 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset in 10/13 ITC Stone Serif
Cover: Alamy
THE 8 SECRETS OF HAPPINESS
PAUL GRIFFITHS & MARTIN ROBINSON
This book is dedicated to all those who want to wake up happy.
Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Count your blessings

2. Practise acts of kindness

3. Savour life s joys

4. Thank a mentor

5. Learn to forgive

6. Invest time and energy in friends and family

7. Take care of your body and soul

8. Develop strategies for coping with stress and hardships

Epilogue

Appendices
Acknowledgments

There are a host of people who have helped make this book a reality, and have shared their ideas and insights with us. To one and all we want to say thank you.
We particularly want to thank Sharon Lanfear for her help in earthing our comments and offering illustrations of what we were trying to say. Her willingness to read and re-read chapters and offer suggestions has made this book all the better for her input.
We are indebted to the writings of Martin Seligman and other psychologists who have blazed an exciting trail into our understanding of happiness, and to the insightful comments of spiritual gurus of long ago, whose wisdom still speaks today.
This book would also not be a reality without the help of several others: Morag Reeve for believing in the project, Kate Kirkpatrick and Miranda Powell from Lion Hudson for bringing their skills and energy to this exciting adventure and Julie Kite for offering encouragement and advice during the final stages.
Above all, we want to say thank you to our wives and families for their part in our personal happiness and for giving us the time to work on this book.
Introduction

Is it possible to be deeply happy, to have a depth of happiness that sparkles in the routine of everyday life and which overflows even in life s most difficult circumstances and darkest moments?
In The Road Less Travelled , bestselling author M. Scott Peck focuses on his conviction concerning one of the greatest truths about life. He faces us with the core reality that life is difficult. He then goes on to argue that many people attempt to avoid this reality. Others, though, do want to know whether there is a quality of happiness that we can access as we face up to, live in and live with the realities of life - a happiness ride which lasts longer than the occasional four minutes on a rollercoaster.
Historians tell us that humankind has always searched for happiness. Plato studied the good life in his academy, Aristotle set up his own college to look at what human flourishing would mean. Over time, Buddha, Confucius, Patnajali and Jesus have all added their insights about this insatiable drive.
Today, this search for the blessed life is expressed in the 56 million hits that the Internet search engine, Google, gets for the word happiness or the fact that there are over 60,000 books in print whose titles are connected with the theme of this earthly nirvana. Recently, Time magazine dedicated a special edition to the subject of happiness. It brought together a significant array of research on the subject, most of which was instigated as a consequence of a challenge issued to the American Psychological Association, by their incoming president in 1998. In his presidential speech he noted that throughout its history, psychology had been preoccupied with the idea of making people less miserable (taking them from -5 to 0, as he puts it). He proposed that psychology should actually change its emphasis towards a quest for happiness (taking people from 0 to +5).
From this challenge flowed a large number of studies that all approached different dimensions of the question of happiness. Time magazine brought these various studies together and summarized their findings. They wanted to explore and answer the basic question, What is it that makes people happy?
It appears that very few people today report that they are happy. An opinion poll by GfK NOP identified that only thirty-six per cent of the UK population consider themselves to be very happy. Interestingly, along with those conducted in the USA, this poll identified a downward trend in the nation s happiness. Believe it or not, we describe ourselves as more miserable than our parents did at an equivalent time in their lives.
So why is the pursuit of happiness so central to our concerns? Why do we feel that our lives are miserable? And how do we understand the happiness that we seek? When it comes to defining happiness, most people are at a loss for words. A major reason for this is that the concept is so difficult to pin down. Money and material possessions are often associated with the attainment of happiness, but describing what happiness would look and feel like is much more tough.
Our western concept of happiness can be traced back to the Greek word eudaimonia , which consists of the words eu which means good or well-being , and daimon , meaning spirit or one s lot in life . The problem comes when we attempt to flesh out what that may mean in our modern daily lives.
If nothing else, such ambiguity, as Henri Bergson comments, means that each individual may interpret it in their own way . The capacity for personal choice is highly valued in our individual and multi-optioned society. So, happiness can be as varied as a holiday, a new car or doing better than you thought you would in your annual appraisal. It is something that is pleasing, involves the emotions and can be understood as a passing or momentary experience. In fact, our English word happy derives from the middle English word hap , which relates to the idea of happenstance or good fortune.
Many studies have emanated from a range of different disciplines, and thus more formal definitions of happiness have been attempted. However, because of the complexity of the subject, it quickly becomes obvious that no common agreement exists.
In the laboratory of biology, happiness can be defined as that which occurs when a human being connects with the brain s pleasure centre. By contrast, in the debating chamber of politics, politicians are aware that what keeps voters happy is the feeling that the economy is doing well so that people feel prosperous and confident about their future prospects.
While on the couch of psychology happiness may be associated with teaching people to see the glass half full as opposed to half empty, at the popular level it is about learned optimism . You can only be as happy as you decide to be. This is quite different from what is seen in the estate agent s window where happiness is advertised as the possibility of buying a house in the Forest of Dean area. In a recent poll the Forest of Dean was voted one of the happiest places to live in the UK.
Advertisers would have us believe that designer label consumption or commitment to particular brands will bring happiness to our lives. The list of definitions becomes almost endless as we think about the various perspectives offered by employers, friends, family or even those who may want to offer counselling of various kinds.
Clearly these are particular or partial views of happiness. A more substantial view of the nature of happiness can be accessed by considering what we may call the wisdom of the ages in relation to happiness. The eastern tradition, for example, says that all of us are filled with inappropriate desires and that as we rid ourselves of these so we begin to discover happiness. Thus, according to this tradition our failure to obtain happiness does not relate to our absence of material possessions but to our desire to have them in the first place.
Then there is the tradition explored by mystics in both the East and West - the ecstatic tradition. This tradition explores how it is in union with a divine being that we find happiness. Life, then, should be a continual search for transcendent experiences.
Since the nineteenth century, the western tradition - which has generally placed more value on the material world - has tended to suggest that precisely because we are material beings, happiness lies, not in spiritual experiences of one kind or another, but in the very practical and attainable areas of health and wealth.
A more recent refinement of that health and wealth tradition recognizes that we do have other needs and it has developed a range of self-realization theories which suggests that true happiness is found in discovering one s true self and destiny. That does not necessarily mean an obsession with oneself; it could possibly mean getting involved in a cause of some kind - a cause greater than oneself. There are many people today who, for example, find meaning in speaking up for the marginalized in our society or campaigning for a better environment.
So is there some way we can navigate these various views of East and West, of ancient and modern? We can find a clue to such an approach as we look at an older western tradition which comes to us from the ancient world of both the Greeks and Christian mystics and thinkers. This older tradition brings balance by claiming that we are spiritual beings living in a material world. The spiritual is affirmed but the physical is not rejected - it too has a part to play. The suggestion is that when both come together in appropriate ways, we can discover the happy life. It is not just about focusing on the spiritual side of who we are, nor about focusing purely on the physical side of our make-up, but rather by combining both in