If you’ve ever watched The Crown, you know how deep some of its dialogues can be. And there is one staggering quote that sends quivers deep into my heart every time I listen to it. It goes something like this: “Happiness is a fickle creature. A constant companion to some, hides herself completely from others.” The thing that struck me about this quote was the fact that it hit so close to home. Have you ever wondered why sometimes it feels like some people are just always happy and some people are just sad no matter what they have going on for them? Almost feels like there is some obscure factor that is out of our control keeping check on our happiness levels, doesn’t it?
Well, now what if I tell you that that fact is actually true? Our happiness isn’t always determined by our situations but rather by other factors that are not completely in our control. One such factor is of course the biology of happiness. An article published in the Review of General Psychology states that 50% of a person’s happiness is determined by their genes. And that’s an alarming figure because it points out how much our happiness is out of our control. Some people just release dopamine more readily than others while others are just left to pick up the scraps their brain decides to give them. And this figure is without considering the various situations that we could find ourselves in. Together with our genes and environmental influences, we have no control over 60% of our happiness.
So what does this mean? Must the poor individuals who have been dealt a bad hand in this particular aspect just give up on their dreams of a happy life? Should they simply accept the fact that even if they are placed in the best of situations, their bodies are not going to let them feel the one emotion everybody wishes of feeling? I personally thought this was very unfair that some people are just doomed to unhappiness through no fault of their own. And fortunately, I found a silver lining. Remember how I said we have no control over 60% of our happiness? I focused on figuring out how to make do with the rest of the 40%.
While it is not completely fair that a few people have an edge over others and can just be happy without any effort, I find it comforting to note that the rest of us are not entirely doomed. We can regain some control over our happiness by focusing on the right intentional activities. These activities include practicing positivity, cognitive reprisal, and cognitive restructuring to name a few. You will be pleased to know that there are a number of ways you can go about it. If you want to know more about these, let us know in the comments below and we’ll whip up a post entirely dedicated to that topic, for you!
So there you have it, happiness might be a difficult goal for one to attain but it is not impossible. And with the right attitude and zest, almost anyone can achieve the ideal of happiness.
References:
Pursuing happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change. Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable. (2005). Retrieved August 17, 2022, from http://sonjalyubomirsky.com/wp-content/themes/sonjalyubomirsky/papers/LSS2005.pdf
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