you know how certain smells can slingshot you into a happy place? for me there are three main smells that wash smiles over my body when i bump into them unexpectedly:
1. rice cooking
- reminds me of my best friend from childhood (the one that you love so much you can't imagine life not joined to her hip)
2. sawdust
- many many joyful hours on habitat build sites and the steady stream of projects around our house when i was growing up
3. freshly turned dirt
- our yard, the garden, tilled crop fields stretching in every direction
the smell of sawdust smacked into me by surprise while i was running the other night and i started pondering what it is about that smell that makes me so happy. volunteering, friends, doing something creative and important and lasting, the thrill of using power tools and learning how to drywall and shingle and install siding. the idea of creating something beautiful from an unseemly stack of raw wood.
since i've been contemplating a conversion to optimism over the last couple of weeks, i did a little bit of web surfing about happiness and optimism. i want to know what i would be getting myself into if i scrapped the cynicism and dread. you know, a cost-benefit analysis of sorts. i came across and article that examined 11 life factors and whether or not they truly made a dent in one's happiness. i have no real data on the scientific tethers of this study, but their analysis made at least anecdotal sense to me. here's the intro:
The Things That Make Us Happy
Happiness is stubborn; hard to find, difficult to augment. Circumstances under our control (employment, education, money) account for only about 10 to 15 percent of our "subjective well-being," the technical term for how good we judge life to be.
Happiness is largely due to personality traits and temperament; the torments or glories of fate don't make a huge difference in how we feel. When it comes to subjective well-being, "you don't get a big bang out of the real world," says Alex Michalos of the University of Northern British Columbia.
But if you're determined to optimize that 10-15 percent that’s in your control, our happiness fact list offers a few clues, that are based on multiple studies.
Hint: Enjoy the little things; being pleased frequently has more influence on well-being than being intensely happy once in a while.
What Makes Us HappyBy Kathleen McGowan, PsychologyToday.com
i decided to scroll through the factors and use it as sort of a primer on what to focus as a novice optimist.
1. BEAUTY: iffy. beautiful people are more popular, tend to have better jobs and higher pay and more romantic partners. but lucky for me, 'beauty' on its own doesn't have a huge impact on overall happiness. who really wants more money and more romance anyway? (me. blast.)
2. MONEY: iffy. it sucks to be broke, but past a certain livable standard, more money doesn't equal more happiness. as long as you have enough to live on, we of modest means are as happy as our thicker-walleted friends. the only main difference is whether we constantly compare ourselves to other people. if we judge ourselves to have less than our peers, we will be less happy and vice versa.
3. EDUCATION: iffy. people with more education theoretically have more career opportunities. they also have higher expectations and more avenues for disappointment. i'd also like to add butt-loads of debt, which was not in the original article.
4. AGING: Check! older people are happier than younger people. the article cites less connection to negative news/events and a strong bias towards the positive. hmmm... interesting.
5. INTELLIGENCE: iffy. smart people tend to be more aware of their shortcomings and disappointments.
6. RELIGION: Check! religious people have stronger community and social networks, which correlate with greater happiness.
7. FREE TIME: Check! but only if you get off your butt and do something. people with time to nurture hobbies and 'active liesure' are happier than people who exhaust themselves doing things they don't like to do. duh.
8. NARCISSISM: Check! people who love themselves are less depressed, lonely, and anxious. this evidence may help tip the scales towards me not hating myself. it's scientifically proven that people who don't hate themselves are happier!
9. SOCIAL SKILLS: Check! more friends = more happy.
10. SENSE OF HUMOR: Check! don't take yourself or your life too seriously. you'll be happier.
11. VOLUNTEERING: Check! the article said that volunteering 'generated more joy than anything except dancing' ....hmmm... anything?? i love me some volunteering, but i would not say that i expect hanging drywall to be as joyful as, say, falling in love or having some good sex. maybe all the volunteers they talked to were of the single-girl-not-getting-much-action variety. there have always been so many of us in the volunteering ranks....
when i fall in love and get married and have lots of happy sex, i will let you know if putting shingles on a house is more joyful than that. i'm still a recovering cynic, after all.
so if i go with this list, i will focus on faith, people, serving, laughing, doing things i enjoy, loving myself, and chilling out about getting older. yeah. that sounds good to me. pretty obvious, i guess, but somehow reassuring to know that someone has actually studied this stuff. that sounds like the foundation of happy. i'll see what i can do to grow those things. i'll keep you posted.
No comments:
Post a Comment