Happiness Is....

Two kinds of ice cream, ala Charlie Brown? See if you can follow these findings:

Larsen and McKibban then calculated the extent to which people want what they have and have what they want. Their findings show that wanting what you have is not the same as having what you want. While people who have what they want tend to desire those items, the correlation between the two was far from perfect.

The researchers found that people who want more of what they have tend to be happier than those who want less of what they have. However, people who have more of what they want tend to be happier than those who have less of what they want.

So, happiness is two things: wanting what you have and having what you want.

Being happy means knowing yourself well enough to know what you want. Hold on. That's not as easy as it sounds. Too many people have no idea what they want and are dissatisfied all the time. It is far easier to articulate what you don't want than it is to articulate what you do want.

And then, when a person gets what he wants, what he really, really wants, the key to happiness is being appreciative of what he has so that the happiness doesn't wane. Or, he can just sell what he doesn't want anymore and buy what he does want.

Happiness is about being authentic and about being grateful. Which brings to mind one of my favorite books which I haven't shared for a while, but is worth bringing to your attention again.



H/T Hotair