Happiness

Happiness

 

As humans, many of us carry around a fundamental dissatisfaction and boredom. This feeling may not be often, but at some time or another we feel that life is just a bit flat.

We all have different ideas of what happiness is. Some believe it’s a successful career, starting a family, or even buying an expensive new car. So why is it when we achieve the things we believe are the route to our happiness, we still carry a sense of displeasure? Are we looking for happiness in the wrong place?

In a recent survey of 200’000, 70% of people in the UK said they were generally pretty satisfied with their life, although this was matched with 60.1% who said they often felt anxious. Overall, life satisfaction in the UK has dropped since 2007-2012 from 7.15-6.89 out of 10. So what is it that lingers over our happiness?

Psychologist DR Gordon Livingston says, “in the modern world we think happiness comes from the outside. For example obtaining money or status gives us pleasure releasing Neurochemicals. Behaviours that produce these chemically-induced feelings are then reinforced and repeated which explains why many of us believe happiness is driven by things such as money or power.

Student Sophie Holding, 21 says, “I often feel pressure from family, tutors, and friends who have expectations of me to pass university, go straight into a career, drive the latest car, to wear the trendiest clothes. As we get older the expectations only seem to get higher. Even when I have achieved a high grade, saved up to buy my own car, or even bagged an important internship, there is still this lingering of worry/doubt in the back of my mind as if there is something else I need to do.”

Livingston “The standard of living has increased over the past 50 years and we often find ourselves comparing/competing with those who appear to have it ‘better’ than us. However unhappiness is actually largely driven by the thought chatter in our minds. Our urge to draw attention outside ourselves in instinctive and we are vaguely aware of doing it. When our minds are not distracted we feel uncomfortable and more often than not we generate unnecessary worries and doubts making us feel dissatisfied.

So how can we learn to control this thought chatteris we aren’t even aware of doing it?

• Dwelling over past situations/memories
• Worrying about the future or distant plans
• Visualising our fears
• Creating negative scenarios however realistic/unrealistic 
• Involuntary thinking – compulsive inner monologue disturbing our peace
• Over analysing situations/people/reactions

 

Livingston, “Controlling thought chatter can’t be done overnight but there is definitely a way out. Once we become aware of our thought chatter, we can learn to control it:

·         Reduce your dependencies on distractions such as Television/internet and learn to rest inside your own mind.

·         Change the negative tone of your thoughts by replacing/challenging them with positive ones

·         Meditate for 20 minutes a day, or involve yourself in other ‘meditative’ activities such as running, swimming or even being in contact with nature.

Once we begin to find peace the in our minds and experience contentment, we can begin to appreciate the things we have rather than compare/analyse them with others.”