So - where does happiness come from..?



Experiencing happiness is a magnificent ability we are born with, a wonderful gift we all have in common as human beings.

From the perspective of evolution, happiness can be seen as a fundamental teaching-tool that nature uses to further our success as a species.

This tool is especially notable in connection with life’s fundamental needs – in that when we satisfy the basic requirements of sustaining our existence, we automatically derive a sense of happiness. For example, happiness is an unmistakable reward we experience when we eat, drink, meet friends or love. And our happiness is generally stronger the more pressing the need – The first taste of water never tastes better, or gives more joy, than when our throats are very dry and our thirst is very great.

This guiding, or teaching if you will, clearly helps us maintain the conditions we function best in.

It’s for this very purpose that pain overrides almost all other emotions. In this way, we can’t side-step or ignore this alarm-signal that something is very wrong. It remains with us as an acute reminder that something must be done.

In general, we experience negative feelings more intensively than positive ones, moreover, these unpleasant feelings are more easily activated.

Happiness is also a feeling we often must strive to experience, while its opposite comes upon us on its own: For while fear, anger and sorrow are instinctive responses to the outer-world’s dangers and eventual set-backs, nature has created pleasant feelings and sensations as not so subtle lures to draw us into and maintain desirable, life-favoring situations.

The above is a brief description of happiness from a fundamental perspective.

The fantastic thing about happiness, however, other than what’s been described above, is that it originates within us.

The latest research reveals that it is primarily the outlook we have to the world around us that determines our sense of happiness – not the world in and of itself. Everything we believe it takes to guarantee a happy and meaningful life – money, education, children, travel, and so on – don’t have a greater impact on our happiness-barometer than our fundamental outlook, not in the long run; nor do difficult, even tragic experiences – divorce, sickness, or the death of people we hold dear. These researchers hold that most of us exaggerate the impact stressful experiences make on the course of our lives. With most of these experiences, even the worst of them, we’re able to put the greater part of their affect behind us.

Obviously, there’s a limit to how much adversity people can live with and still feel happy and content with their lives. This limit, or border, is passed, as previously noted, in connection with having enough food for the day, a roof over our heads, and people around us we can trust. Most of us have these fundamental necessities of human life.

In general then, it’s not a lack, or an abundance of life’s necessities that determines our happiness in the long run, but rather our fundamental out-look, our basic way of looking at ourselves and the world around us.

People who are happy and content are those people who perceive, value, and apply their strong sides, accept their weaknesses and take life as it comes.

Let’s take a look at 7 Ways to Happiness on the next page! :-)

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Copyright Julia Nestler 2007. All Rights Reserved.