Photo: Vermin Inc / Flickr

One can learn to manage stress and one’s negative emotions, just as one can learn to develop and encourage one’s positive emotions. To create a positive state of mind over the long term, one has to have a sense that you enjoy your life and that it is worthwhile. This general state of wellbeing can be expressed in feelings of contentment, excitement or an absence of any negative emotions. Here we discuss how to choose happiness – and why money isn’t a factor.

Money and happiness

Having lots of money or objects doesn’t do too much for long-term happiness. Research has shown that there are more unhappy wealthy people than people who are less well off. This is especially the case when people have come to be wealthy very suddenly. The quick fix pleasures that money can buy can make you feel good in the short-term but they don’t bring happiness over the long-term.

What brings happiness over the long-term is not what you have but how you react to what you have. However poor you are, you can be happy because happiness is a result of how and what you think. Happiness is a choice.

Choosing happiness

You can cultivate a positive life by practising being happy every day – which starts today. You can do this by thinking about what happens to you in every moment in a positive way. Besides, you can engineer happiness: you don’t have to sit back and passively wait for it to come to you.

Start by looking out for the positive things in your life. Start noticing the happy times you experience and take note of what makes you feel especially cheerful. Most of us tend to take life for granted and aren’t fully aware of the times when we are happy.

Of course, negative things are going to happen and you can’t feel happy every moment of every day. Feeling a wide range of emotions can lead to a richer experience of life. But having a core of self-love and a feeling of loving your life will make the hard times easier to bear.

Tips to keep you happy

Nurture and appreciate your friends, family and surroundings. Regularly count your blessings and take note of those special moments when you experience joy. Don’t expect happiness to arrive with fanfare as it often comes along in the subtlest of ways.

In order to fully appreciate your situation and life, compare yourself to those who are in a worse situation than you are. It most certainly doesn’t help to continuously compare yourself to those who are better off than you. Also, come to terms with how short life actually is. Is it really worth indulging in self pity or blaming others for the way you feel about your life?

Rather choose to get into a positive spiral than a negative spiral. Keep it in mind that how you think and react determines how happy you are, whatever the circumstances.

Tags: lifestyle