Happiness makes the world go around!
Happy people live longer, did you know that?
Makes sense, doesn’t it? Happiness is good for the heart as well. So when your mind and body, heart and soul are all in a good mood, there’s no reason to feel sad, right? Right!
As I hum the Bobby McFerrin song “Don’t worry be happy”, I am reading that simply by being happy, you can live a lot longer, adding as much as ten years to your life.
So what makes us happy?
Obviously not just wealth – since not all rich people appear to be content.
Happiness can be enhanced through friends, interaction with people we like, feelings of freedom, the community we live in – all resulting in a general feeling of well being. Appreciation of what we’ve got, rather than sulking about what we don’t have also makes a big difference. Happy people tend to be healthy people. They think positive, and they care about themselves and others. They are concerned about looking good, hardly ever smoke or drink, are quite active, appear more self confident and generally seem more social.
There’s no real research to show how happiness actually helps good health, but we definitely know that unhappy people tend to be stressed, bad-tempered and develop health problems like hypertension and gradually, lower immune response.
It is important to enjoy life, make choices that make you happy. Smiling faces are always so much nicer to see than frowning faces. Imagine if there was a School that taught people to be happy!
I get my happiness from watching children at Vidur’s school. I get a great sense of peace seeing them go about their business. Some talk to themselves or to imaginary companions, with actions. I find that I am almost always smiling when I am around the school – the 6 year old Std I children in their almost ankle length skirts, to allow for growth :-D, the ones who’ve lost their ribbons, or socks, or bags, or pencils – the ones who go home crying, the ones who go home fighting with their parents, the ones who go home humming – all in a day’s work.
So lets take some action here!
Let us focus on those little things – observe everything – its so therapeutic. Focus on the sensory aspect of life. Feel the texture of everything we touch – whether it is someone’s hand or something we eat. Taste everything that we eat and drink rather than make it a routine action. Live each minute! It makes a big difference when you are conscious about every little thing and APPRECIATE!
Cheers!
Vidya
2 comments
Vidya….
I once heard a psychologist who has a talk radio show discuss how studies (I think) showed that poor children in India (obviously a selected group) were happier than upper middle class kids (also a selected group). As far as unhappiness….raising my kids in a suburb in Philadelphia where the vast majority were financially comfortable, I have never seen a more unhappy, messed up group of kids…as well as their parents. Sad, sad, sad. I found their values and energy so disconcerting that I ended up homeschooling my kids. I think this article will hit a universal note with all of your readers…xxoo-Fran
Thank you, Fran. 🙂 But it is a fact – street children, for instance, never look sad. As long as they get something to eat, they’re quite happy. It breaks my heart when I think of how most people gripe over the trivial things, when these kids are cool, even though they’ve no idea where their next meal is going to come from.
I wrote this post back in 2008. Commenting was not a big thing then 😀
I am so happy you came by.