Those who are successful need not be happy and the Happy need not be successful.
Success is measured by the others or our conception of what others consider us to be a Success.
We think we are happy with success because we hear people talking about our ‘Success”
But not all say you are successful in an endeavor, profession.
Some deride because of it if not brushing it aside.
One feels Happy when one hears talk about one’s success and becomes depressed when some one ignores it .
And we set ourselves a Goal in Life, in the present days,at success in what is being perceived by the others as Success.
If some group says you are a Success when you get a five figure Income, own a house, Beautiful wife, become CEO of a Company, Star or a Public personality.
Till some one comes out with another formula.
All these are subject to change as perceptions of people starts changing on things and issues.
There used to be a time in India, that getting B.Com Degree, secure a Bank employment you are a success.
Then came MBA.
Now it is B.E. in Computers and an IT Job.
You were a success if you ha a two-wheeler.
Now a Car!
As values change s is your success target.
And our own definition of Success changes from one point if time to another.
As against t this, Happiness does not require the others.
Look at a toddler.
Its smile of Happiness captivates you, so natural
Why?
Because a Child knows to be Happy with itself.
You set it for your self.
Once set, it does not generally change.
Here your happiness does not get affected or change because of the changing perception of you by the others.
There is a difference between happiness and contentment.
Contentment is when you have had and you do not need anything, especially something you were after and you feel full as after a Full Meal.Happiness is when you get some thing you earn for and is more closely associated with your efforts and has a value judgement as well.
In contentment there is simply a feeling of fullness.
While happy people need not be contented, contended ones are Happy.
Happiness, because of its nature is difficult to assess even subjectively as it keeps on shifting,
However as happiness has a Contentment content, the measure of Happiness may indicate your state.
A Study has now revealed that one is at the peak of Happiness when in 23 or 69.
One is being young, full of aspirations, unsullied by the realities of Life, with pep and vigor where everything seems possible.
At 69, one knows his limit and the Realities of Life and has learnt to be happy by being contents primarily.
The Report of the study.
happy smiling child arms raised with joy and happiness
“One theory is that the U-shape is driven by unmet aspirations which are painfully felt in midlife but beneficially abandoned later in life,” Princeton researcher Hannes Schwandt, who led the London School of Economics study, told the Daily Mail.
Other recent studies have attempted to track happiness to economic security. For example, a 2010 Princeton study found that personal wealth does affect one’s respective happiness but only up to about $75,000. Beyond that, other studies have found that personal relationships and physical health are more intricately tied to happiness.
Another article published today looks at the “10 Habits of Happiness,” which include gratitude lists, getting enough sleep and spending time outdoors.
For the study, Schwandt and his team compared happiness levels for 23,161 Germans between the ages of 17 and 85.
Schwandt said individuals enter a lowered state of happiness at around age 55, when they begin to negatively analyze the various unrealized accomplishments in their lives. However, at around age 60, the happiness level begins a steady uptick as those same people move beyond their past regrets and enter a level of acceptance.
“People in their fifties could learn from the elderly, who generally feel less regret,” he said. “They should try not to be frustrated by their unmet expectations because they are probably not feeling much worse than their peers.”
However, the study found that happiness again begins to decline as individuals move into their 70s…”
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If you’re middle-aged and miserable, don’t despair: Give it a decade or two and you’ll be feeling like a carefree young person again.
Researchers have revealed that life satisfaction peaks at 23 and 69. People in their early twenties overestimate their future life satisfaction by an average of around 10 per cent, before the disappointments of life kick in.
They face decades of declining expectation before hitting their lowest point in their mid-fifties, when regrets over unrealised dreams are at their greatest.
Satisfaction levels finally start to rise again after 55 and peak once more at 69, according to a study by the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.
Rockefeller Center, in New York City. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Life loses its charm and becomes tedious when one has everything in terms of material comforts.
Some get things too easily.
People long for good food,shelter ,good clothes,Car,Gadgets like Mobile, iPod,Home, a Girl/Boy friend , a job which appears to be satisfying for a while.
They get married.
They postpone be-getting children to ‘enjoy Life’
They work inordinate and ungodly hours, eat junk food, guzzle soft drinks ,Hard Drinks.
On Saturdays/Sundays, they wake up around 12 and laze about, go out for food, sleep , then go out for Dinner and watch movies.
Suddenly they realize that they are ‘burnt out’
They have no desire to do anything.
They leave jobs saying that they want to do things they always wanted to do, forgetting that they chose their Careers on their own and made decisions on their own over every thing.
They become abrasive and irritated and become depressed.
This does not end here.
Once out of job, they try to do some thing which they think they like doing , get disillusioned shortly and start hunting for a job.
Some times they get it immediately, some times they don’t.
They become depressed further and consult a Psychiatrist.
The Psychiatrist tells them that they should get their priorities right and decide on what they like and start doing what they like.
And the whole Cycle begins again!
Why?
People achieve material comforts without too much of a struggle and they receive more they need.
They are left with out the scope for yearning, which alone can spur one to be vigorous.
They follow skin deep relationships taken in by spurious Love.
For them,Personal communications are not dictated by spontaneity but by careful calculated moves.
Relationships are spontaneous so is Love(not lust).
They lack personal goals that appear reachable yet not reachable.
Only when the objective remains tantalizingly reachable,is life interesting, not other wis.
Values like affection,honesty,caring for others genuinely, the ability ti accommodate others and the acceptance of Life as it comes are the keys to Happiness.
Above all Faith is necessary, to sustain interest Life.
If Life runs along predicted lines it would lose its charm.
It is its sheer unpredictability that makes Life worth Living.
Why can’t people be contented and be happy?
Achievements are fine but at what cost?
To be praised by others while w live and be spoken of highly after we die for having left ‘our footprints’
Of what use is this?
All achievers of whom we praise and extol,of what use are these to them if they are unhappy?
Of what use is our praise of Alexander,Michael Angelo,Da Vinci, Gandhi, Einstein to them after they are dead?
Let us Live simple and understand that life is worth living if there is struggle.
“In a hearbreaking and perfectly titled and presumably unpaid-for Huffington Post post, “A Struggle of Not Struggling,” Taylor reveals, in true Lifetime Movie fashion, that her seemingly perfect life has a dark underbelly that threatens to eat her alive.
Now, two months after graduation, I seem to be one of just a handful of people that’s been able to get themselves on their feet, pay their own bills and actually put together some semblance of an adult life with minimal parental assistance. I bought a car, found an apartment and set up a 401k, just six months after turning 22. I came down on the ‘right’ side of every statistic — I found a job in my field that actually pays well, I’m living on my own, and seem to have everything that these other college graduates are dying to have.
But what about that 10-cents-a-word life that I always wanted? What about New York City? What about freelancing, penning newspaper columns and urban adventures? What about the struggles that I see on Girls and the tales of credit card debt and ramen noodle dinners? Aren’t these the things that really make you 22?
The things that really make you 22 are A) modeling your own life after the characters on Girlsin exactly the same way that a previous generation did on characters from Sex and the City, while simultaneously harboring the belief that the depth of your worldview and artistic nature makes you vastly superior to that of anyone who would model themselves on something so gauche as a TV show character, and B) writing first-person essays on the internet that you will look back on with disgust. So rest easy, Taylor Cotter: you are 22.
Anne Marie Slaughter‘s article for The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” has been quoted and criticized ad nauseam. However, all that’s run through my head is that, at 22, I’ve already had to make life-defining decisions. I chose the path of a full-time job and an adult life. I gave up on the adventures, on freedom, on youth. Forget about career versus motherhood — I can’t even have it all now.
I suppose that I’m grateful that I can make all my car payments and start saving for retirement while most of my friends are living at home and working part-time jobs — but I often find myself lamenting the fact that I’m not living at home and not working a part-time job. From my perspective, these are just some of the life-changing, character-building experiences that I may never have.
At 22, Taylor Cotter has had to make life-defining decisions, such as whether to accept a position as editorial assistant at StudentAdvisor.com. Her fate is sealed. From now on, she’s just “that editorial assistant at StudentAdvisor.com,” rather than “that insouciant unemployed 22-year-old who is stealing beer from bodega, and yes the police have been called, my friend.” Taylor often laments the fact that she has a full-time job and an apartment and then, while lamenting these things, types on her essay draft that she later submits to the HuffingtonPost.com these words: “From my perspective, these are just some of the life-changing, character-building experiences that I may never have.”
From who else’s perspective would you be writing, Taylor? Fanciful girl! From everyone else’s perspective, you can still look forward to the character-building experience of having something you wrote widely ridiculed on the internet. And I can tell you from experience, Taylor: the worst part is when you realize that you weren’t even paid for it. Never underestimate the character-building situations that you can get yourself in, just by being a 22-year-old who is complaining about having a stable income during the worst recession in living memory.
Do not be too harsh on Taylor, gentle reader. Though she has a steady income, an apartment, a car, and a healthy sense of entitlement, she is right to mourn her predicament: she lives in Boston. Even Lena Fucking Dunham worship is preferable to that cruel fate.”
The quest for The Unknown and Contentment makes one happy.
Science and Religion belong to the category of trying to make Absolute statements, though those who propound these know these to be untrue, do not make one happy.
The inner yearning to feel one’s Self until that is realized, no one is happy.
Indian Philosophy,realizing this, does not propound Dogma.
It encourages self-analysis ans Skepticism until one is satisfied.
Therein lies the Greatness of Indian Philosophy.
The link between spirituality and happiness is pretty well-established for teens and adults. More spirituality brings more happiness. Now a study has reached into the younger set, finding the same link in “tweens” and in kids in middle childhood.
Specifically, the study shows that children who feel that their lives have meaning and value and who develop deep, quality relationships — both measures of spirituality, the researchers claim — are happier.
Personal aspects of spirituality (meaning and value in one’s own life) and communal aspects (quality and depth of inter-personal relationships) were both strong predictors of children’s happiness, said study leader Mark Holder from the University of British Columbia in Canada and his colleagues Ben Coleman and Judi Wallace.
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