Pharrell Williams’s song Happy is great! Tap your foot, clap your hands, smile, and sing along. However, are people happy? Did we forget what it is that makes us happy?
How do you define happiness? The dictionary simply defines it as “the state of being happy.” Happiness is that feeling that comes over you when you know life is good, and you can’t help but smile. It’s the opposite of sadness.
Do you relate to any of these definitions of happiness?
- Making six figures before I am forty years old.
- Knowing I made a difference in the lives of others.
- Living a good healthy life.
- Enjoying family.
- Having a home, food to eat, clothes to wear, and family to share it with.
- Hearing my children laugh.
- Watching the birds, smelling the flowers, and the warmth of the sun.
How do you define happiness? We live in a world where people perceive happiness in terms of wealth, status, or title. People tend to look at material things for happiness. What is the longevity of happiness? Can happiness be defined in one sentence, or do you need many components to your happiness?
“Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living, focusing on both individual and societal well-being. It studies positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions…it aims to improve quality of life. It is a field of study that has been growing steadily throughout the years as individuals and researchers look for common ground on better well-being. Positive psychology began as a new domain of psychology in 1998 when Martin Seligman chose it as the theme for his term as president of the American Psychological Association.” From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Can we teach happiness? “People are only as happy as they make themselves be.”-Abraham Lincoln. I believe we can help provide the teaching and experience of the components to lead to sustainable happiness. We can do this by teaching gratitude.
Gratitude is defined in many ways, but let’s focus on gratitude—the act of giving back to acknowledge what we have received. When we can connect gratitude with action, it becomes authentic and benefits us at a deeper level. There is one book our team did with our middle school students called: We Beat the Streets by Sampson Davis (Author), George Jenkins (Author), Rameck Hunt (Author), Sharon Draper (Author). These three boys grow up to become doctors and give back to their neighborhood. We used it to talk about bullying, social issues, hope, and many other aspects.
Today, we face many barriers, challenges, social issues, and darkness of negativity slipping in the cracks of our lighted homes. Can we teach happiness? We seem to be teaching negativity, contempt, dislike, bitterness, and animosity.
“To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Can we teach happiness? Smile, let’s give it a try!