Sunday 25 September 2011

Thoughtful Sunday - Happiness

In The Observer in July 1992 Dr John Collee wrote:

"There are many paths to happiness, but here's what the psychologists recommend:

Let your chosen path be one which you can pursue for a good length of time, one which will tie in with your past and future experience so that your life as a whole makes some sort of sense.

Let it break down into small, easily accomplished tasks.

Let there be an opportunity for people to congratulate you when each of these tasks is accomplished.

Ideally, let it be something you do with other people so that, when your faith in the project begins to flag, there is always someone around to encourage you.

And let it be a project that evolves, so that the more you do the more complex and rewarding it becomes.

That, it seems to me, is as close as we can get to a formula for lasting happiness.

There's an anonymous quote in Michael Argyle's book – ‘If you want to be happy for a night get drunk, if you want to be happy for a few years, get married, if you want to be happy for ever, get a garden.'"

The above thoughts of Dr Collee’s were inspired by reading the thoughts of a psychologist "with a name that must cause him problems: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi."


4 comments:

  1. great post, scriptor -- :-). here's to growing gardens... ;-)

    --hw

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  2. One thing, with a name like Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi he has to be taken seriously!

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. With all of the recent busy-ness, the gardens are what I've let fall behind. The vicious Oklahoma summer did not help ~~ being banned from watering certainly took its toll. However, I think there is something to salvage and I think I shall. ;^)

    To Canadian Chickadee ~~ Congratulate yourself! ;^) (Perhaps loudly enough for someone else to notice.) ;^)

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