I found this article which I posted a year ago and had another look at it. As I read it, I find nothing has changed in my opinion. This s from Time Magazine article and is on three things to do to finding happiness.
I went into it immediately to find out if what I believe is what “happiness guru” Eric Barker believes. In the Bible, Paul says he has ‘learnt to be content.’ I believe you can learn to be happy. You can train yourself. And that’s exactly what the article says. But what interested me was the research done on people whose jobs it is to find fault. An auditor, for example, is always looking for errors; looking for mistakes and finding fault with financial records. This, according to the article, overflows into their personal life. Because they are training their brain to be critical for most of the day, their learning continues after hours where they pick up all the little errors with their family. Not great. Here are the three things and what I think about them.
1. Find three things every day to be grateful for.
“Remember the good and forget the bad.” I live by that. You get to finding happiness by remembering the good.
2. Compare yourself with others – but only those worse off than you.
I’ve always said, ‘comparison is toxic’ but the Eric Barker flips that over a bit…
I don’t really like this one and I think it is a bit of a contradiction to point one. When I’m comparing myself to those worse off than me, I’m looking at something negative and I’m supposed to be remembering the good and forgetting the bad. If I compare myself to someone who seems much better off than me, emotions of unhappiness and envy tend to come to the surface. Actually truth be known, those that ‘appear’ much better off than me have their own struggles and probably look at me with envy that my life is so simple! Comparison is toxic! What comparing yourself with those worse off than you does do, is it lessens cause for complaint. Ideally, each of us should be working towards self-acceptance or improvement based on what we do with what we have and not what we see that others have. We also want to strive to be friends with everyone regardless of their wealth or well-being.
3. When faced with challenges, tell yourself a positive story about how they will turn out.
This needs some mental work. When things ‘start going wrong’, reassure yourself that everything will turn out okay and that good will come out of the situation. For me, Helga, as a Christ follower, my peace within a difficult situation rests in the fact that God is in control. But as I look at the world, where behaviour that contradicts the Bible, abounds, it’s tricky to re-write a story without adapting behaviour for the better. Eg. In marriage, if one partner has an affair, it’s going to result in a great deal of unhappiness. There has to be some change of behaviour for the marriage to survive and go onto thrive. You can’t control people. Sin causes chaos. Another example is alcohol – you cannot expect an alcoholic to embrace a healthy, fulfilling, happy life unless he stops drinking.
These articles are always going to be from the world’s perspective. I don’t deny they have some benefit and I probably do all three without thinking. My biggest way of finding happiness is through my spiritual life.
When Jesus was on earth, He said something very interesting. Matthew 24:35
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
When we read the Bible, we get a moral compass for life. Start with the Gospel of John. I am refreshed every time.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂