A 2023 New Year’s Reflection on Happiness: A Key To Life’s Satisfaction

The Perspectives of Happiness

1. According to VeryWellMind, “Happiness is an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. While happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction.”

2. Psychology Today says, “Happiness is defined differently depending on who you ask. Some people define happiness as a positive emotional experience. Others define happiness as having two parts called hedonia (pleasure) and eudaimonia (thriving). Outside of the scientific world, most of us define happiness as a mixture of positive emotional experiences and a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in life.”

3. According To PursuitOfHappiness.org, “Leading Positive Psychologists claim that happiness has three sources, i.e., that the “Happiness Pie” has three slices: Slice 1: Our genetic makeup. Slice 2: Our environment. Slice 3: Our actions.”

4. Sonja Lyubomirsky, an author and researcher on positive psychology, describes happiness thus, “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”[2] So, there is an evaluative component here, along with a felt one. How we think about what we feel matters as much as what we experience.

5. In a rather unhelpful fashion, dictionary.com defines happiness as “the quality or state of being happy.” Fortunately, the second definition elaborates with “good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.”[1] What’s clear is that happiness is a subjective experience, it is something we feel, and hence it is lived individually, isn’t guaranteed, and can be transitory.

What does happiness mean to you?

Today is Called the Present for a Reason

Hopefully, this revelation becomes a bit more evident each day the longer you live. Amidst the rush of seconds, minutes, and hours filled with work, family, and friends, it can be easy to lose track of where we are. Without care, we can end up in places we didn’t intend to, simply because we weren’t paying close enough attention, steering deliberately, and…