The importance of being happy
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle said these words more than 2,000 years ago, and this is true until today.
This is a small summary of the importance of being happy, because many times we forget to be happy. The next month we will start with a new workshop on how to be happy. Although we may sometimes neglect to cultivate our own happiness, feeling happy is intrinsically important. If we are happy it has added knock on effects and benefits. These include us becoming more compassionate and feeling healthier both physically and emotionally. We become more creative, witty, energetic and fun to be around
The fundamental reason why happiness is so important is that it’s extremely vital to our own goals in life and can help us achieve many other cherished personal ambitions and goals. Also, by being happy, we have the potential to change many other lives just by being ourselves.
Some will wonder how we can do this when so many negative things happen to us. The answer is because we allow these things to cause us negative reactions, attitude. For example, we go to work and we have a bad day because some colleagues did not support our project, however we focused on the negative instead of the positive: the rest of my colleagues supported me.
People of all ages are usually stressed about something. There seems to always be a reason to worry, whether it be money, relationships or the future.
It is important to keep prioritizing the good feelings while trying to limit the negative stresses in life
We do not know what is the infallible recipe to be happy.
It is very possible that there is no magic recipe to achieve the desired happiness, but there are some guidelines that can help to achieve it.
- Happiness can improve your health: being happy may help promote a healthy lifestyle. Studies show that happier people are more likely to eat healthier diets and engage in physical activity.
- Happiness can help you live a longer life: ‘‘pessimistic and permanently dissatisfied people often develop chronic inflammation’’ ( Henningsen, 2013)
- Happiness improves our relationships with others
- Happier people are more productive on the job because they have more energy and are able to focus better
- Happier people tend to want to continue learning and growing in their personal and professional lives.
- Happier people enjoy life more
So take the time every day to do something that makes you happy and your life will become more fulfilled.
Stefania, Spain.
