The Three Equations for a Happy Life, Even During a Pandemic
Curated from:
www.theatlantic.com
Ideas, facts & insights covering these topics:
5 ideas · 14.3K reads
Studying happiness
Religion, philosophy, and the arts have long considered happiness a subject important to study.
The sciences, however, have only recently caught up: the scientific study of happiness has exploded over the past three decades.
3.8K reads
Subjective well-being = Genes + Circumstances + Habits
- Subjective well-being is preferred by social scientists instead of happiness because it's not so vague and subjective.
- Research shows there is a big genetic component in determining the baseline you always seem to return to after events sway your mood.
- Circumstances could make up between 10- and 40 percent of your subjective well-being. But their effects never last very long.
- The one variable that affects long-term well-being and is under our control: habits.
2.5K reads
Habits = Faith + Family + Friends + Work
Constant happiness comes from human relationships, meaningful work, and the transcendental elements of life:
- Faith doesn’t mean any faith in particular. Just find a structure through which you can contemplate life’s deeper questions.
- When it comes to your family and friendships and how they should be, just cultivate and maintain loving, faithful relationships. There is no magic formula.
- What makes work meaningful is not the kind of work it is, but the sense it gives you that you are earning your success and serving others.
2.6K reads
Satisfaction = What you have ÷ What you want
Don’t obsess about your haves; manage your wants, instead.
Don’t count what you own (in terms of money, power, status, or romantic partners) and try to figure out how to increase them; make an inventory of the attachments that you need to discard instead. Then, make a plan to act on eliminating them.
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"We need to learn how to want what we have not to have what we want in order to get steady and stable Happiness.”
2.8K reads
