How to be Happy
by A huge tip on an elusive desire.
How great it would be, to rest and relax in the know-ledge that you’re an accomplished professional, one who’s happy and well-respected among his peers. How nice it would be, to know that the ready and steady cash you enjoy is a fruit of your own labors.
It is enough to make a man yearn for success, like a man wandering in the desert yearns for shade and a cool drink of water. Like a prisoner yearns for freedom; he can almost taste it, yet it lies just beyond his grasp.
George Vaillant, a researcher at Harvard University, studied a group of men for more than 70 years. The longitudinal study began in 1937, and followed a group of men through college, careers, marriages and divorces, retirement and death–by requiring them to fill out surveys and questionnaires.
The reason for the study? Easy. To learn the essentials of the good life, to discover the keys to happiness. What follows is a summarization of the study, an abstract, if you will.
It didn’t seem to matter what problems that the men had, nor the amount of money they enjoyed. Many of the study’s participants were prone to alcoholism, which results in its own particular brand of Hell. Funny how the so-called trappings of success can lead to such misery.
What the study found is remarkable. It didn’t make a difference, the type of trouble encountered, for some problems yielded the same results as others-misery.
What did matter was the person’s response to the problem, how he chose to deal with adversity. And it was found that what matters most is not the journey, but the individual’s relationship with God.
A personal relationship with Him eases troubles. Conferring with God daily can ease your mind, give you peace. That is why a person who has nothing but the shirt on his back and a song in his heart, can be happy with so little.
His response to his situation is what ultimately matters. It is the way that any problem can be minimized and handled: It is your response.
That was the gist of the Harvard study. That is the way we all can keep peace of mind. And that is the essence of the inquiry on the quest for happiness.
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