Flowingice's Blog

How to Be Happy
Eavesdropping
 
Apr 18 2006

Intro
It’s the promise of every product in the store: “Buy me and I’ll make you better, skinnier, smarter, faster and stronger. Buy me and you’ll be happy.” But what makes people happy?

For some people it’s friends and family, for others it’s money and power. For some people it’s how they look, for others it’s who they are as individuals.

Listen to Dave and John talk about things that make them happy.

Dialogue

 
Dave:  John, you’re always a bright and sunny guy. What’s the key to being happy?

John:  You know what really makes me happy is Daylight Savings Time.

Dave:  How so?

John:  Well, now we have, you know, it just happened this weekend…

Dave:  Yeah.

John:  ...where we move the clocks back an hour. So, now we have an extra hour of daylight. And a lot of my mood has to do with amount of light or sunshine that I get on a daily basis, which is kind of funny, you know, living in Portland, Oregon, where it rains most of the time.

Dave:
Doesn’t this part of the country have a high rate of depression, which they say is because of the lack of sunlight?

John:  Right, right. I guess an extreme is, maybe, Sweden, where there’s hardly any sunlight, and I hear the suicide rate is actually pretty high up there.

Dave:  Right, one of the few countries that’s higher than the Japanese suicide rate.

John:  Uh huh.

Dave:  I’m kind of ashamed to admit this, but two or three weeks ago I just need some sunlight, so I went and I bought a tanning package.

Discussion

Happiness is a tricky thing – we’re all chasing it, but how many of us actually have it?

Some researchers say that happiness decreases when wealth and material prosperity increases. But, for some people, happiness is the result of wealth and material prosperity.

If you’re feeling down, there is one simple way to make yourself feel happy: Smile! Research has shown that if you force yourself to smile, you will start feeling more hopeful and happy. So start stretching those lips, folks, and spread a smile.

What makes you happy? What can people do in their lives to be happy?