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Happiness and Giving
Happiness - surely one of the most sought after goals in the world yet also, one of the most elusive. But why, when we know so much about the key variables that contribute to happiness, do so many people miss the mark?
Quite simply, because they look in the wrong places!
Instead of focusing inwards, one of the things we know about happy people is that they spend more time focusing outwards. They care for themselves, live healthy lives, and attend to the challenge of negative thoughts as well as the reinforcement of positive ones. But they also care for and actively engage in activities that will benefit others. Rather than being selfish and self-centred (as some of the common myths and misconceptions seem to suggest), happy people are more generous and more altruistic.
“Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” (Helen Keller)
Having a clear sense of life purpose is, interestingly, one of the core strategies that will increase your chances of happiness. If this purpose involves the benefit of others, then you increase your likelihood of experiencing real and meaningful positive emotions even further.
I can’t remember where or when I first heard this but there’s a great quote that goes something like:
“There is a wonderful, mystical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life, happiness, freedom, and peace of mind are always attained by giving them to someone else.”
And there are so many ways we can give to others: just as there are so many ways we can become happy ourselves. But as many (older and wiser people) before me have noted, give first and you will receive.
Specifically:
- Donate money (you only need to give as much as you can afford)
- Donate time (there are innumerable organisations who’d love a helping hand)
- Donate expertise (give generously of your skills and experience)
If happiness is something you’d like to experience more of then clarify your life purpose and think optimistically; develop positive relationships with others and live healthily; but most of all, don’t forget that one of the most powerful sources of happiness is engagement in charitable acts. Give, and there’s no doubt you’ll receive!
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on Monday, June 26th, 2006 at 5:48 pm and is filed under Happy Tips.
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June 27th, 2006 at 4:34 am
I enjoyed this little piece very much.
I would like to offer an observation related to giving.
The idea of giving or volunteering in our society has been corrupted at present by making volunteering compulsory for the unemployed. So if volunteering is compulsory at any level, how can it be genuine as a whole. This slams a clamp on the happiness that can flow through giving.
This problem flows from a lazy system, government and corporation, that is removing work through automation and semi-automation, but not redisigning the system to ensure that all citizens can properly participate. Work for the Dole is a lazy excuse for not ensuring that there is a fair days work for a fair days pay and is no more than sliding toward slavery. People forget that slaves were frequently paid.
People in work feel forced into slaving harder and longer out of fear of becoming a government slaves on Work for the Dole. This fear running through the system is not inducive to happiness at a most fundamental level. The unemployed are now treated and viewed as criminals on parole and subjected to severe punishment.
Low income, uneemployed, prisoners and refugees can have great difficulty accessing dental care and dental pain is not inducive to happiness.
In the community many grants are available for work in community, that do not include wages. There is a growing expectation of people putting in work and not getting paid. Worse upon worse, this form of slavery is being used by the system as a way of people getting into work. Government and corporate laziness knows no bounds.
Meanwhile ordinary people are finding that their lives are being more strictly controlled in this environment of fear, made worse with a War on Terror that should always have been a International policing situation. Calling that level of crime a war only helps to turn it into a war. Such fearful war-like thinking is not inducive to happiness.
Having worked in psychiatry at one time, one lesson that I learned was that rebelling against the illness was often the way to health.
We have got ourselves into a very ill social situation and we may need to rebel to free ourselves of the chains of fear.
Happiness is about freedom. When we are free within we can also be happy to be free in society. When we are fearful within, we are happier to be controlled.
I like the quote in James Michener’s ‘Tales of the South Pacific’, “and he grinned that ancient defiance upon which all freedom, ultimately, rests.” page 155, 1973 edition.
To the three ‘Donate’s I would add, “Donate vivacity”. Freedom and happiness are intimate buddies and if we cannot give vivaciously to life, with a heart that is free, then are we becoming a society of zombies? (There was a Zombie ‘lurch’ through the streets of Sydney recently.)
Will we find our freedom, or become a deepening society of slaves in a Big Brother society (even popularised on TV).
Real happiness is revolutionary, because it says that “I will be free!”
Will we fight back and reclaim the society that we should have been building, that allows all citizens the vivacious freedom to be happy and be in love with life.
“Of course there is a way to stop the rampant spread of beauty. It has to do with regimentation, conformity, assembly-line aesthetics, and the triumph of the functional over the haphazard.” Anne Rice, ‘The Tale of the Body Thief’, 1992, page 345.
Happiness in its full bloom is a dangerous political notion.
Kim Peart
Van Diemen’s Land
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:09 pm
I can personally agree with increase in happiness with finding your life purpose - this happened to me last year.
And as for “giving” ….. I recently went on a holiday to a neighbouring country in the South Pacific and the most fun I had was when I went and did some “clown rounds” at the hospital, entertaining the patients dressed in my clown outfit and giving out over 20 kilograms of gifts to the patients and staff. By far the most memorable and happy time I had on holiday - and it was precisely the GIVING that made it so good. I gave no only gifts and laughter but also my time and energy, the latter which is very very rare. But I wouldn’t have done it any other way.
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:54 pm
i neglected to say in my previous message that the country I visited is a 3rd-world country ….. and that’s the reason why they enjoyed my visit so much and why I loved doing it so much …..