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You’ve heard it a million times: If you want to be happy, you should strive for long-term happiness. But what does that even mean? How do you achieve it? And is it even possible? Keep reading this article to learn answers to these questions and more about how getting long-term happiness can help you make the most of your life. Happiness as a life goal.
What is happiness?
Happiness is a state of emotional well-being that a person might feel in two different ways: either narrowly, when pleasant things happen in a particular instant, or more widely, as a positive assessment of one’s life and accomplishments as a whole—that is, subjective well-being.
Happiness can be separated from both other positive and negative emotions, like sadness, fear, and rage (such as affection, excitement, and interest. This emotion of happiness often co-occurs with a specific facial expression: the smile.
We achieve happiness through combining multiple areas of life. Living a balanced life throughout to excel in life as well as live blissfully. Happiness is related to feelings of fulfillment, joy, comfort, pleasure, delight, and enjoyment, all of which are lovely pleasant emotions that are triggered by memories, thoughts of others, or life events. In conclusion, our simple definition of happiness is a wonderful emotion which comes after an event.
Happiness takes on a variety of forms. People divide happiness into two categories:
Short-term happiness – happiness achieved through action that temporarily provides dopamine. As the jargon implies Happiness in the short term is temporary and is marked by an instant feeling of pleasure or contentment that eventually wears off. It’s the temporary joy experienced.
- Humor is when anything makes you laugh out loud, someone tells you a hilarious joke, or you see a humorous movie. We all like a good chuckle, but unless other things are happening that add to your total sense of contentment and well-being, this type of satisfaction is fleeting.
- Entertainment — No definition of happiness would be complete without mentioning entertainment. You could spend hours or even days being distracted from your troubles by engaging in sports, TV shows, musicals, concerts, good literature, and other hobbies.
- Surprise: An unexpected positive thing, such as a phone call from an old friend, a pay raise, a new, well-paying job, or an unanticipated growth in the value of your financial holdings, can cause a strong rush of happiness. The thrill lasts longer the bigger the surprise.
- Pleasure — An delicious meal, a satisfying sexual experience, or a much-needed relaxing break can all significantly increase short-term happiness. You want as many of those as you can get to gain temporary satisfaction.
Long-term happiness
Long-term happiness comes from recurring, and/or consistent components of your life which will make you happier in the long run. When the fleeting pleasures of the moment become too much for you, you should establish as many of these as possible because they serve as your “fallback plan.”
- Meaning and purpose are extremely important. Any good definition of happiness must include some mention of the personal passion, enthusiasm, and motivation that comes from having a meaningful sense of purpose in life.
- Satisfaction could be another word for fulfillment. This is frequently associated with a sense of success and accomplishment, and while this is not the only requirement for a happy life, it certainly plays an important role.
- Inspiration is the intersection of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment with vision and personal/spiritual values. Believing that your life has a higher purpose can bring tremendous feelings of peace, joy, and well-being.
- Lasting Love— Now we come to what is possibly the most important aspect of all. The most basic human need is to love and be loved, and when this need is met in a long-term and meaningful way, it brings immeasurable joy and comfort.
The theory of practical happiness divides life into seven categories: Health, Safety, Learning, Work, Money, Others, and Self. As illustrated in the figure below, these categories comprise the practical happiness wheel, and if they are not developed evenly, life will not run smoothly and will be upsetting in some categories.
So, join us as we gradually learn about these categories and the applicable goals in each of them, as well as how to establish, follow, and understand the factors and skills that will help us achieve these goals.
- HEALTH – Health is the balanced state of a human being that allows them to perform their critical activities to sustain their life and proper growth and development. It is a prevalent misconception that the only sign of health is a slender or powerful body. Yes, these are some markers of good health, but everyone has their own set of ailments, abilities, and personalities. And by understanding these and how to deal with them, one can achieve the best potential health. For example, consider a person who has a temporary or chronic sickness or disability but maintains health by adhering to a specific diet, meds, or supplements, and may even be able to do some exercise or sports.
- SECURITY– Security is an internal experience formed in individuals that represents comfort and reassurance, and it provides them with a proper environment and an adequate atmosphere in which to carry out life activities, tasks, and everyday labor free of fear, anxiety, and tension. Although security is the responsibility of the state or system in which we live, when we do not feel secure enough, we take the required measures to get an adequate sense of security.
- LEARN– Learning is the process of gaining information, values, and skills through reading, talking to individuals with experience, or obtaining instruction. Learning can result in the development of behavior, knowledge, and practical thinking that improves one’s material and moral well-being. It leads to personal growth and development.
- WORK- Any activity or effort that a person makes to accomplish a particular result or objective is considered work. Consistency, discipline, and commitment—whether to oneself or others—are typical characteristics of work. If feasible, a person may work after understanding the requirements for a particular profession or their business, or both, but if they lack consistency, discipline, and commitment, they risk losing their employment, their business, or both.
- MONEY– A person can use money as a tool or as a commodity to conduct economic transactions. Money is more broadly defined than that, including shares, bonds, real estate, and even everything that can be purchased or sold, even though at first look it may seem that money is the currency. It is also crucial for giving someone and those he is accountable for a suitable lifestyle. If money is not handled carefully and deliberately, it may run out and expose people, businesses, or even entire nations to harsh living conditions that could lead to unemployment, homelessness, and even starvation. Usually, money comes from work or business, but it also sometimes comes from inheritance.
- ENVIRONMENT– This encompasses all types of environments, living things, inanimate items, and even people. A person’s participation in a society in which he has a role to play is one of the most significant sources of his or her happiness. A person cannot live forever apart from his environment since it would be detrimental to his mental health and even his survival. Humans would be in danger of going extinct if they were not social and making contributions to the evolution of life. Here we define our happy family goals.
- SELF – The response to the question “Who and what am I?” is the definition of self. You will discover that the self is split into two halves when you respond to this question. The first part is the material part, which consists of everything we own, and the second half is the moral part, which is concerned with the ideas, information, and morals that we carry with us.
In Conclusion
We aim to provide personal growth & self improvement for everyone with simple changes in habits by defining personal goals which eventually contributes to our well being and happiness.
