How We Get Happiness Wrong

We now have more than enough science and research to know that happiness in all its forms does not come from what happens to us. It comes from what we do. Interestingly, the happiness levels in anyone's life correspond to how they get happiness right or wrong in the first place. 

We don't even need the ever-growing empirical evidence, only the evidence of our own exprience. We have seen over and again how human beings habituate to anything they superstitiously assign as "source" of their happiness. The thrill of a new purchase or status in our life wanes as we return back to our emotional baselines. Two people in the same circumstances can exprience completely contrasting emotional reactions to the same things depending on the meaning and focus they engage. 

It is easy to get happiness wrong because most of us have been schooled since birth in the notion that happiness happens to us. Somehow, it becomes possible to discover otherwise that our most vibrant and sustainable happiness comes from what we do.

Doing happiness includes living and working with purposes larger than self-interest. It's creating and growing connections with others. It's being mindful of our strengths and engaging throughout our days and nights. It's being generously of value to others. It's living and working with presence, invitation, courage and gratitude. It's keeping ourselves and each other's energy nourished. This is getting happiness right and it makes all the difference in the world. Just getting it right makes happiness more possible.