28/03/2015
On Happiness:
“Human beings evolved in a dangerous world, where we had to recognize threats to survive...As a result, our brains are wired to be much more sensitive to negative emotions and sensations than positive ones.”
"Classic studies that compared the emotional well–being of lottery winners, paraplegics, and quadriplegics found all three groups had similar levels of current happiness, suggesting that once the initial windfall or trauma fades, we adapt to change and return to our original hedonic setpoint."
“Happiness isn’t just one big event... “but the accrual of smaller, incremental steps, such as feeling gratitude and helping others.”
“Rather than asking how we can get happier, we should be asking how we can increase happiness all around us...When you make positive changes in your own life, those effects ripple out from you and you can find yourself surrounded by the very thing you fostered.”
Everyone, it seems—from Buddhist monks to positive psychologists, from Charles Schulz to the Beatles—has offered opinions on what it means to be happy. And whether you believe that bliss is found with a warm puppy or a warm gun, in a Prozac prescription or the pages of self–help books, you likely cr…
