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."

Is Happiness a Reasonable Goal?

"Is happiness a reasonable goal? Alas, I suspect it is not. I suspect it is the last thing to aim for... for it is a by-product, a thing that appears when you are engaged in some other task, a thing that disappears when you set out after it, like a cat, who, pursued, will hide; coaxed, will stride indifferently over to the neighbour’s yard; but ignored, will come and lean on your leg as you work or climb in your lap as you sit reading.”
Jo Coudert ‘Advice from a Failure’

“I do not believe, of course, that any human being can be really happy for long. True happiness comes, and goes as quickly, a rare fleeting thing. But content is something else again. And for a whole month, I was content. With me, this was a record.”
Barbara Webster – “Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge”

"How often do we look for beauties in the features of distant lands, and forget the little nooks and corners of our own happy country. Alas we often search for happiness and peace where they are never found. Search your own homes and hearts. If not there, they are nowhere."
Richard Cobbald

(Cartoon by Joe Pitt – animation cartoonist at Disney studios)

Happiness

 

“Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always just beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne