Happiness is an amazing thing in this world. Since the days of Aristotle, happiness was thought to have at least two aspects which are pleasure and a life well lived. According to psychology, happiness is referred to as simply pleasure and meaning (Let’s put the things). A psychologist named Dr. Martin Selignman had recently added a new component to the definition of happiness: engagement (Let’s put the things). Engagement refers to living a “good life” of work, family and hobbies. But how does a person become happy? Some people would say from relaxing and treating yourself and some may even say by getting or being rich. Most times happiness is derived from helping others but it can also depend on ourselves according to Aristotle.
Helping…
Giving connects us to others. It has the ability to create a stronger communication as well as build a happier society for everyone. A way to make our happiness in ourselves grow is by doing things for other people whether it is something small or even by volunteering to help out (Let’s put the things). It is a powerful way to boost happiness in people around us including our family. Giving is not just about money. You do not have to be rich or wealthy to give happiness to others. A way to happiness is by doing something genuine and out of the goodness of your heart. It could be by saying a compliment, smile, lending someone a helping hand or even by just supporting someone through a difficult time in their life. Giving someone your full and divided attention is a way to make someone very happy. These things can mean just as much or even more than financial gifts. Scientific studies show that helping others can boost happiness (Let’s put the things). It is proven to increase life…
First happiness helps helping. People who are happy tend to want to help other people than a person who is not. They are more likely to have spent some of their time or money helping others (Post). A way to increase happiness is by volunteering. People who donate to charity or spent money on gifts for others were found to be happier than those who did not spend money on others, and this was regardless of income level (Anik). While it has been assumed that giving also leads to greater happiness, this has only recently been started to be scientifically proven. For example according to actionforkindess.org, “when participants in a study did five new acts of kindness one day per week over a six-week period, even if each act was small, they experienced an increase in well-being compared to control groups.” Also “In another study, participant who were given five dollars or twenty dollars to spend on others or donate to charity experienced greater happiness than people given the same amount to spend on themselves” (Let’s put the things). The amount of money that the people were given did have anything to do with how much happiness they had. When someone is happy it makes them want to give more to others than when they are sad. This can lead to a higher tendency to give and so on (Vallant). This not only affects Americans but it is consistent across many different cultures as well. It makes sense…
