How
many times have you told yourself, “I just want to be happy?” There
is a plethora of research about the science of happiness, and
results conclude that each one of us can work towards the goal of happiness. To further emphasize this point, here is a short, life-inspired, tale:
The story
There were 200 people attending a seminar. At
one point, the speaker told the group they were going to do an activity. He
gave each attendee one balloon and told them to write their name on it. Then,
the balloons were collected and moved into a very small room.
The
participants were then asked to go into the other room and were given 2 minutes
to find their balloon. It was chaos. People were searching frantically for
their balloon, pushing each other and running into one another while they
grabbed a balloon, looked at it, and inevitably tossed it to the side. At the end of the 2
minutes, no one had found the balloon that had their name on it.
Then, the
speaker asked the participants to go back in the room and pick up one balloon
at random, look at the name, and return it to its owner. Within minutes,
everyone had been reunited with their original balloon. The
speaker then told the group, “This is what it’s like when people are
frantically searching for their own happiness in life. People
push others aside to get the things that they want that they believe will bring
them happiness. However, our happiness actually lies in helping other people and working
together as a community.”
The Moral: You will get your happiness if you help other
people find theirs. It is believed that if you want to be happy, you would
need to practice compassion. Helping others makes us happy because it gives us
a sense of purpose.
In fact, a study from the London School
of Economics found that the more you help other people, the happier you will be. The researchers compared the variance in
happiness levels of people who don’t help others on a regular basis to the
happiness of weekly volunteers. They found that the active participants (those who help others) had the same
variance in happiness as those who make $75,000 – $100,000 annually vs $20,000 (these being the ones who don't help anyone).
Helping others brings us happiness for three
reasons:
1) Diversion: When you worry less about your own needs–in this case, finding your own
balloon–the stress of that hunt decreases. Taking your focus away from the fact
that you can’t find your own balloon lets you divert your attention away from
your own problem. The feeling of compassion
replaces the feeling of need.
2) Perspective: Having concern for other people helps us
remember that we are all facing similar problems in life, no matter what the
individual severity of the issue is. Sometimes when we are focused on our own
issues, they get put into perspective when we encounter the true suffering of
others (for example, a
severe disability). It’s easy to then realize the excess amount of
attention we’ve been giving our own problems. Having compassion helps us put our problems into perspective.
3) Connection: Connecting with others by helping them could bring happiness into your life. Humans are social beings
that need to have positive connections with other people in order to be happy. Connecting
with other people enriches our lives and gives us a sense of fulfillment.
Interesting, isn't it? My
wish is for everyone to seek and find happiness at some point in their life (if they haven't yet), as the option is out there...benefit from it!
If you are willing
to help other people to find their happiness, this will bring a lot of
happiness to you too…believe it!
