Happiness

By: Rafaella Amorim de Souza, Brazil

“Try to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.”

– Sydney Smith

Does money bring happiness? Is it possible to be happy alone? Are children happier than adults? Are joy, satisfaction, pleasure and happiness the same? Happiness is the absence of sadness? Is health fundamental to happiness? Have we been born happy or unhappy? We were happy and did not know? What does the brain have to do with happiness? These are questions that positive psychology are trying to respond.

Since Classical Antiquity, Happiness has been the subject of debates, philosophical and religious reflections.  Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Carl Jung, Albert Bandura, Gordon Allport and others focused on the investigation of positive emotions. Therefore, the great contribution of Positive Psychology wasn’t to create the study of Happiness, but to have it developed on a scientific basis.

To include the research of happiness in the field of sciences, Positive Psychology uses both traditional methods of psychological research and the most advanced process in the field of neurosciences for the study of emotions and human behavior. This is how Positive Psychology chooses the path of empirical research, respecting the rigors of scientific methodology and basing its analyzes on concrete data.

Unlike the “smiley face” apologists, positive psychologists distinguish the importance of knowledge of dark and thorny subjects such as depression and misery for the understanding of happiness. That’s why their scientific objectivity that Positive Psychology should not be confused as the source of a recipe for happiness. Happiness is not about always being smiling but try to see the good on every bad decision, moment of sadness.

Negative emotions are essential for us, because they shows when we need to st
op and look to ourselves, because they’re signals urging us to change what we’re doing wrong, so If you never permit your self feeling blue you will never truly know why you are sad. That’s why thousand of people don’t achieve the happiness, because they think superficially and don’t try to change what is wrong.

Happiness is never found in materialistic things that cannot be physically possessed. The society are forgetting their bases, living their lives with no sense of control, buying everything just as excuse for trying to emerge on a social standard, that will never be reached. Therefore, happiness is priceless. It can never be purchased. Obviously you need money to survive, but you have to concentrate on what is really important for you. The life is made by small and unforgettable moments that money can’t buy.

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