A Formula For Happiness
"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."- Abraham Lincoln
God bless the PBS drives. It is during these drives that I always get to see an unusual programs that I never seem to see the rest of the year. This was also true the other day when I caught a portion of Deepak Chopra's happiness seminar.
I did not see most of it but one slide he presented was full of wisdom. With the slide he presented a formula for happiness. It was made up three pieces.
The first piece is SetPoint in the Brain. According to Deepak, our brain's own happiness set point makes up anywhere from 40-50% of our overall happiness level. In other words, our own internal belief of how happy we are makes up almost half of our actual level of happiness. The old saying, "misery loves company" should become, "Happiness leads to more happiness." Lincoln's quote specifically identifies this set point as the key to happiness.
The second piece is Conditions of Living. He believes that it contributes 7-12% towards our level of happiness. If you are struggling to meet ends meet then this places a burden on your mind and leads to less happiness. So put your financial, work, and home life in order and your happiness score goes up by 10%.
Last piece that makes up happiness is Voluntary Choices. Deepak believes that this part contributes 40-50% towards our happiness level. So if we make bad choices we can not expect good results. If we make good choices we can not guarantee good results BUT they become more likely to lead to our happiness level improving.
All together the formula is
Happiness= SetPoint in the Brain + Conditions of Living + Voluntary Choices
What is interesting about this formula is, that when you pull back and examine the three pieces, we are in charge of all three pieces. We can set our happiness set point higher by exposing ourselves to positive inputs continuously. Slowly we can change our living conditions to be better by attacking each area of our lives and nudging it to a better state. In the end we can not expect overnight to reach nirvana overnight but choice by choice we can improve our choices and the level of happiness.
Today's question is:
"How happy are you based on your set point, conditions, and choices?"
"Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be."- Abraham Lincoln
God bless the PBS drives. It is during these drives that I always get to see an unusual programs that I never seem to see the rest of the year. This was also true the other day when I caught a portion of Deepak Chopra's happiness seminar.
I did not see most of it but one slide he presented was full of wisdom. With the slide he presented a formula for happiness. It was made up three pieces.
The first piece is SetPoint in the Brain. According to Deepak, our brain's own happiness set point makes up anywhere from 40-50% of our overall happiness level. In other words, our own internal belief of how happy we are makes up almost half of our actual level of happiness. The old saying, "misery loves company" should become, "Happiness leads to more happiness." Lincoln's quote specifically identifies this set point as the key to happiness.
The second piece is Conditions of Living. He believes that it contributes 7-12% towards our level of happiness. If you are struggling to meet ends meet then this places a burden on your mind and leads to less happiness. So put your financial, work, and home life in order and your happiness score goes up by 10%.
Last piece that makes up happiness is Voluntary Choices. Deepak believes that this part contributes 40-50% towards our happiness level. So if we make bad choices we can not expect good results. If we make good choices we can not guarantee good results BUT they become more likely to lead to our happiness level improving.
All together the formula is
Happiness= SetPoint in the Brain + Conditions of Living + Voluntary Choices
What is interesting about this formula is, that when you pull back and examine the three pieces, we are in charge of all three pieces. We can set our happiness set point higher by exposing ourselves to positive inputs continuously. Slowly we can change our living conditions to be better by attacking each area of our lives and nudging it to a better state. In the end we can not expect overnight to reach nirvana overnight but choice by choice we can improve our choices and the level of happiness.
Today's question is:
"How happy are you based on your set point, conditions, and choices?"
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