This week, I was watching my
weekly TED talks, I watched a talk called The Surprise Science of Happiness, as
I watched this I thought about all the different things that make people
happy. In the Talk Dan Gilbert, a psychologist from Harvard who has researched
this topic for a while, said that we had a chance to “control” happiness, as
our brain evolved and we received the frontal lobe we gained the capacity to
simulate ideas and concepts based on previous background. He said however that
these simulations are not always correct. He said that due to something called “impact
bias” we tend to overestimate the impact or duration of future events.
He gave the example, he offered two people a
lottery winner and a paraplegic and asked who we thought was happier. He then surprised
us by saying that both categories were equally satisfied with their lives. He said
that those who look to their loss as a new chance of happiness have synthesised their happiness. He concluded that the human’s capacity to adapt generates
happiness because it helps one be content with what he/she has.
This made me think about
my own happiness. I know naturally I am not really a happy person, I tend to
look at the negative aspects of the environment around me. I am a dreamer, but
when it comes to real life around me I see the many aspects from the happy
things to the tristesse. However I only ever focus on the negative things. I thought about when things don't go to plan
how I react to them. I realised how much I look at the loss or the damage
instead of seeing the chance to have happiness.
The Bible talks about joy and happiness a lot, it tells us that this joy and happiness is a gift from God: Solomon said,
“I perceived that there is nothing
better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also
that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is
God's gift to man.” Ecclesiastes 3:12-13
Solomon was a wise man, he was
given wisdom from the Lord, he said that everything was meaningless yet he discovered that there was nothing better for us than to be joyful and to do good as
long as we live, as it is a gift from God. He also said, “In the day of
prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the
one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be
after him.” So we have been given joy or the feeling of happiness as a gift
from God. In this gift we have been given the choice to be joyful, this is why
the scripture tells us to rejoice. The bible tells us that when we look to scripture and to God
we will find this joy.
So why is it that I find it
difficult to always be happy, I guess, it is because I am a very
forgetful person and I keep forgetting that, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians
6:19-20 it is by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in
vain… though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. God is working
in me and I need to remember that but on top of
that I need to remember to be grateful for what God has done and continues to
do.
Funnily enough this is what psychologists will help make me a happier
person; being grateful. Paul knew this all too well as did the psalmist as they many times over remind us to give thanks. Let me end on this note, on this verse from 2
Corinthians 9:15.
I don’t know if any of this made sense as I was kind of
spilling my thoughts onto a page.
Let is consider this and remember this:
THANKS BE TO GOD FOR HIS INEXPRESSIBLE GIFT!
AMEN!
