이번주는요 8/15 The Topic of This Week..

[Harry]

Have you been already living in a Happy Life or Have you been struggling to be in a research of where is my true Happiness?

Here is 10 keys to True  Happiness

The best part - It's well within your reach

Better living through science is possible. Over the last 70 years or so, researchers have been probing happy and unhappy people , and they are finally zeroing in on the factors that make a difference. What follows are the top ten. By the way, the experts think your genes account for about 50 per cent of your disposition: the other nine factors make up the rest.

1 wealth

Money can buy a degree of happiness. But once you can afford to feed, colthe and house yourself, each extra dollar makes less and less difference.

 Whenever and wherever they look,scientists have found that, on average, wealthier people are happier. But the link between money and happiness is complicated. In the past 50 years, average income has skyrocketed in industrialised countries, yet happiness levels have remained static. Once your basic needs are met, money seems to boost happiness only if you have more than your friends, neighbours and colleagues. "Dollares buy status, and status makes people feel better," explains Andrew Oswald, and economist at Warwick University in Coventry, England. This helps to explain  why people who can seek status in other way - scientists or actor, for example - may happily accept  relatively poorly paid jobs.

2 Desire

How much stuff do yo need to feel good? In the 1980s, Canadian oplitical scientist Alex Michalos asked 18,000 university students in 39 countries to rate their happiness on a numeric scale.  Then he asked them how close they were to having all they wanted. He found that  the people  whose aspirations - not just for money , but for friends, family, job, health, the works - soared furthest beyond what they already had tended to be less happy than those who perceived a smaller gap. Indeed, the size of the gap predicted happiness about five times better than income alone. "The gap measure just blow away the ablsolute measures of income " says Michals. Theis aspiration gap might explain why most people fail to get much happier as their salaries rise. Instead of satisfying our desires, most of us merely want more.In surverys over the past two decades, people were asked to list the material possessions they thought imoprtant to " the good life." The researchers found that the more of these goods people already had, the longer their list was. The

good life remainde always just out of reach.

3 Intelligence

  Only a few surverys have examined whether smart people are happier, but they indicate  that intelligence has no effect. That seems surprising at first, since brighter people often earn more, and the rich tend to be happier. some researchers speculate that brighter peiple could have higher expectations and thus be dissatisfied with anything less than the highest achievements. "  Or maybe scoring high in an IQ test - which means you have a high vocabulary and can rotate things in your mind - deesn't have a lot to do with your ability to get along well with people ." says psychologist Ed Kiener . He thinks "social intelligence" could be the real key to happiness.

4Genetics

Are some people born happy or unhappy? David Lykken, a behavioural geneticis and former professor of psychology, believes our feeling of well- being  at any monent is determined half by what is going on in  our lives at that time and half by a "set point" of happiness, which is up to 90 per cent genetically determined and to which we eventually return after dramatic events. While our happiness set point is largely determined by our genes," explains Lykken, "whether we bounce along above it or slump along under it depends on our - or parents - good sense sand good training."

Lykken found that genetic variation accounted for between 44 and 55 per cent of the difference in happiness levels. Neither income, marital status, religion nor education accounted for any more than about three per cent. But whether you trudge through life on the low side of your set point or skip along on the high side is up to you. Many studies have shown that extroverts tend to be happier than introverts. And research has found that putting people in a good mood makes them more  sociable. Michael Cunningham of the University of Louisville, Kentuchky,showed that people were more talkative and open with others after seeing a happy film than after watching a sad one. Theoretically, even someone with a low set poin can boost his or her outlook.

5 Beauty

First the bad news: good -looking people are really happier. When Ed Diener got people to rate their own looks, there was a small but positive effect of physical attractiveness of subjective well-being."

Perhaps the explanation is that life is kinder to the beautiful. Or it could be more subtle than that. The most attractive faces afe highly symmetrical and there is evidence that symmetry is a reflection of good genes and a healthy immune system. So perhaps beautiful people are happier because they are healthier. You could cash in on beauty's emotional high even if you aren't gorgeous - if you believe that you look great. Unfortunately, studies show that women tend to think they are too fat and men worry about being puny.

6 Friendship

There is something about this, but ..I can't^^

7 Marriage

In an analysis of reports from 42 countries, researchers found that married people ae consistently happier than singles. The effect is small, but that still begs the question: does marriage make you happy, or are happy people simply more likely to get married?

Both answers may be true. In a study that followed more than 30,000 Germans for 15 years, Diener and his colleagues found that happy people are more likely to get married and stay married. But anyone can improve his or her mood by getting married. The effect begins about a year before the "happy day" and lasts for at least a year afterwards. For most people,satisfaction levels return to their baseline,but the researchers say this conceals the fact that a good marriage can have a permanent positive effect. Furthermore, people who are less happy to begin with will get a bigger boost from marriage. It seems there' something special about signing that piece of paper. The research shows that you can't get as much benefit from simply cohabiting. "My hunch is that cohabiting couples lack the deeper security that comes with the formal bad of gold, and that is why they are not quite so happy,"says Oswald. Insecurity, we know from all data, is bad for human beings."

8 Faith

Karl Marx was fairly close to the mark when he described religion as an opaite for the masses. Of the dozens of studies that have looked at religion and happiness, the vast majority have found a positive link. Belief in and afterlife can give people meaning and purpose and reduce the feeling of being alone in the world,says Harold Koenig of Duke University Medical Centre in Durham, North Carolina, especially as people age. "YOu really see the effect in times of stress. Religious belief can be a very powerful way of coping with adversity."

 Religion also brings social interaction and support. But Koening believes it is not just about receiving. "Studies have shown that people who provide support to others are better off themselves. They even live longer." This, researchers agree, makes religious involvement a source of greater satisfaction than other socially inclusive activities such as book groups.

9 Charity

 Several studies have found a link between happiness and altruistic behaviour. But as with many behavioural traits, it is not always clear whether doing good makes you feel good, or whether happy people are more likely to be altruistic. James Konow, an economist at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, tried to tease apart cause and effect in a lab experiment. He recruited subjects to answer questionnaires,and towards the end of the session gave half of them $10 and half nothing. He then told the subjects who had been paid that they could share their money with those who had not been compensated.

Konow found that  the happier students were overall the more likely they were to share the money. However, being in a happy mood on the day of the test did not make them any more generous , and studendts who gave did not roport any immediate increase in happiness. In fact, they wre slightly less happy.

 But those who shared their mney were more likely to show the personality traits of a self-actuliser" -they were concerned with their own personal growth and improvement. Konw thinks that while a single act of generosity did not make his subjects happier, the cumulative effects of being a generous person did.

10 Age

old age may not be so bad. "Given all the problems of ageing, how could the elderly be more satisfied?" asks Laura Carstensen, a psychology professor at Stanford University. In one study, Carstensen gave pagers to 184 people aged between 18 and 94, and paged them five times a day for a week, asking them to fill in an emotions questionnaire each time. Sld people reported positive emotions just as often as young people, but they reported negative emotions much less frequently.

Why are old people happier ? some scientists suggest older people may expect life to be harder and learn to live with it, or they are more realistic about their goals setting only ones that they know they canachieve . But Carstensen thinks that with time running out, older  people have learned to focus on things that make them happy and let go of those that dont.

"people realise not only what they have, but also that what they have can not last for ever,"Carstensen say. " A goodbye kiss to a spouse at the age of 85, for example, may elici far more complex emotinal responses than a similar kiss to a spouse at the age of 20."

Time to share our thoughts.

* Please delve into at least one part among 10 keys in order to have one question that might be a symbol of who you are , what you like most in your life...

(1)Each one must bring one question to your partner which is the most curious , questionable to you among ten keys of this article. Thus there might be four issues..

(5)Wealth

*Money, can they buy the highest point of happiness?

*What else can they not buy?

*Is it possible that they can get a true love, ture friends? if it is possible..How is it feasible? How can you make it happen to buy a true love by money?

*Tell us about your latent plan to make a big fortune?

(6) Desire

Do you have more wanted thing than money?

(7) Intelligence

The people who get a high score on the exam in school. Do they have more income in this sociey? It is probably true...Eventually are they really happy?

Are you very intelligent one who got a higher score on exam in school..? but also you are good at getting along well with people?

Do you know any friends who is very smart with an exam in school,and who is good at socilizing with people?

(8)Genetics

I think some people was born with happy and positive gene...and some was born with unhappy gene..  I mean The people with unhappy gene, once they got what they truely wanted, and then they complained things again...Unlikely this people, Happy gene people are always happy ,whatever it is,no matter what situation, circumstance and predicament...I would say  Your inborn gene will be never changed....When you try to your inborn character,you will have more pain..difficulties..

can you describe pricescly who you are..?

(9)Beauty

Is this bad news for you that good-looking people are really happier?

Did you figure out that this part is telling us plastic surgery can't give you your happyness? you can elicit this answer from this beauty part !! if you dont know , ask me or your partner.. 

(10)Friendship

You can pass or cover

(11)Marriage

What a lovely word it is

How much money do you think can match with finding your mate?

But some choose money rather than their half of themseves in a course of marrige.

The people who dont have a spouse or who are not get married yet..

Do they have a problem? or are they waiting the optimal time for finding a spouse?

(12) Faith

I have a martial art that it is like a compass telling me where is right derection to do a right thing.

Do you have a religious faith that can cope with adversity?

(13)Charity

Is this also one of your goals to help people who is in poverty?

(14)Age

I want to get  one hundred age and then climb a mountain with good people..It means

I am not going to let my body and my spirit stop improving from keeping a good shape

and being in nirvana.

*Have you seen the seniors who is so immature with bad behavior in a course of your lifetime?

If this is too long and very tough to read , pick out one thing that is most interesting to you...

[피오]

amazing..^.^;

[구루미]

헉.. 스크롤바를 내리는데도 넘 힘드네.--;

[타모^ㅁ^]

What a nice Topic~!!!

[thinguy]

수고하셨습니다...프린트해서 차근차근 읽어봐야되겠네요...

[은진]

역쉬~ 기대를 저버리지 않으시고, 빡빡한 글들을..^^ 토픽 준비한다고 수고하셨습니다. 남은 한주 잘 보내세요~

[Harry]

구루미님 오랫만이네요...좀 바쁜가보죠...그리고 이 글은 너무 재미있었고 전 개인적으로 심오한 철학을 좋아하는것 같아요..삶이 참 재미있게 보이지 않아요.? ^^

[나은]

헉...ㅠ.ㅠ

[혜정ah~]

정~~~~말 수고하셨어요~~ ^^ It's good to think. ㅎㅎㅎ