Creating Purpose

To address the disconnect between happiness and deeper levels of satisfaction, researches proposed a model that characterizes people as falling into one of four well-being types.

1. Optimizing one’s positive emotions, and denying the reality of their negative experiences.
2. Feeling unhappy seeing the complexity of the world around them, and neglecting the positive aspects.
3. Having a generally negative view of themselves and the world.
4. Having a generally positive and empathetic view of the world.

Being happy means more than feeling good. True happiness comes from handling challenging and adverse situations, while collaborating and building lifelong bonds with the people in our lives.

A collective thinking process, where the good of all is considered leads to a level of happiness that cannot be attained by being selfish or self-concerned.

It consists of 3 parts: positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction.

Positive affect and negative affect are basically your emotions and moods, and life satisfaction refers to the evaluation of your life as a whole (how satisfied you are with your life, what you would change etc).

Tracking your own subjective well-being can be very powerful if you keep alongside a journal of your life's events. 

Keep it up for some time and you will see trends emerge. You'll also be able to adjust your activities in order to maximize positive affect and life satisfaction and minimize negative affect.

Pessimism, or having a bias towards a negative outcome, has a fan base too, as it seems that pessimists are immune to disappointment.

Their view of life already considers the worst possible outcome as the default one, and anything better than that can only improve it.

Losing something we already have is twice as much pain than gaining the same. This skewed feelings towards loss is known as loss aversion.

Expectations always dampen the feelings of happiness, always setting us up in advance for a dose of disappointment.

In a society that promotes gratitude and positivity, there is pressure to suppress or conceal negative feelings.

But psychological studies reveal that acceptance of your negative feelings promotes emotional resilience, with fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Acceptance of negative emotions involves not trying to change how we feel but taking them for what they are.

Acceptance works because it blunts the emotional reactions to stressful events. In time, it can lead to positive psychological health.

Understanding well-being based on feelings of satisfaction, pleasure, or happiness has two problems.

• The physical-condition neglect. Humans adapt to their circumstances, meaning the poor and sick can still be relatively happy.
• Valuation neglect. Valuing life is a reflective activity. It should not be reduced to feeling happy or unhappy.

We should then acknowledge that feeling well is not the only thing people care about.

This approach claims that both personal characteristics and social circumstances affect what people can achieve with a given amount of resources.

What really matters for well-being is what the person manages to do or to be. But well-being is more than that - it also includes freedom.

Structure and routine are important, but in excess, they may stop you from growing. Taking certain risks can be healthy and rewarding.

Challenge yourself to take a risk each day, do something new or differently, anything that pushes you out of your comfort zone.

Mental health tends to deteriorate when we obsess over past happenings instead of taking responsibility in what we’re doing or creating in the now.

Live in the present without hyper-focusing on the future or the past.

For clarity, stability and better mental health, meditation (or mindfulness) is a universally recognized training activity.

Breaks and time-outs lead to better productivity, as they allow the mind to form connections and help in creativity and even relationships.

Our cells generate energy through oxidation, but oxidation also reduces the dopamine and serotonin in the brain and creates oxidative stress.

Antioxidants found in brightly colored foods like fruits and vegetables act as a defense against oxidative stress and inflammation in the brain and body. Antioxidants also repair oxidative damage and scavenge free radicals that cause cell damage in the brain. 

Omega 3 are polyunsaturated fatty acids that are involved in the process of converting food into energy. They are important for the health of the brain and the communication of its feel-good chemicals dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine.

Omega 3 are essential nutrients that are not readily produced by the body, so we must include foods high on it in our diet. 

In determining our pathway to wellbeing, it doesn’t just matter how physically active we are but how active (how energetic, vigorous, and vital) we feel.

Even though our predictions aren’t always accurate, the simple act of contemplating the future might be a key to well-being.

It usually is a 2-steps process: first, we dream big and imagine fantasy outcomes; then, we “get real” and come up with pragmatic plans.