It doesn’t matter whether you are a college student, homeless man or professional football player, humans are all pursuing the same exact thing, happiness. Happiness cannot be bought, earned or gifted but through positive psychology I can learned to be better at being happy. “Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living” (Peterson). In other words, it’s the study of what makes people happy and how to improve on being happy. The main focuses in positive psychology are to build on the best things in life and work on repairing the worst parts. Positive psychology isn’t just for people that are severely depressed or have major mental disorders; it’s useful for even the happiest of people because nobody’s ever …show more content…
Unfortunately positive psychology isn’t a magical science that cures people of their sorrows or negativity because at the end of the day people still need to face their real world problems. Positive psychology gets a lot of criticism for just being a recycled version of the power of positive thinking but positive psychology dives deeper into the subject than just thinking more positively. I stated earlier winning the lottery will not make someone happy but positive psychology can teach people what things they can do to lead better lives. My personal favorite example of a happy day is when an individual feels independent, capable and connected to others around them. If I can take one thing away from positive psychology is that I can always improve on aspects of my own character and work on parts I’m not as good at. I learned a lot from my character strengths survey which shows what kind of person I …show more content…
This trait wasn’t expected to be so high on the list of traits but it makes sense because it connects with kindness very well. My friends I have always told me how wise I am for my age, especially when it comes to others’ feelings. I’ve always had good people to look up to in my life, like both my parents, coaches or mentors I’ve had in my life. Perspective is something that isn’t used every day and gets put on the shelf but when the time comes, I’m able to help others out with picking wise decisions and changing the way they look at a situation. My mother has always been good at having perspective; she’s always been able to change how I look at a situation. For example, when I was in middle school, there was another student that I didn’t care for and my mom always told me to imagine if we were friends and not enemies. I haven’t gone out of my way to develop this trait because it naturally comes to me because of how I was raised as a child. In the future I can imagine this will be a very helpful skill when it comes to parenting since that’s exactly what parenting is. Being able to provide wisdom to my children will help them grow into successful members of society or at my future career in terms of looking at a problem at multiple
Newman and Randy J. Larsen’s article “How Much of Our Happiness is Within Our Control?” claims that we have much less control over our happiness than positive psychologists uphold. This shows that you let things that happen in your life control if you are happy or not. These psychologists argue that you cannot make yourself happier. This is saying you can never attain everlasting bliss and that you get used to all the negatives factors in your life. I do not believe this statement is true because I think you can always put a positive spin on every negative factor in your life and that your positive factors in your life can last as long as you want them to. Therefore, I disagree with Newman and Larsen because I believe you are the only one that has complete control over your own happiness. They state that the influential environmental variables in our lives are just as uncontrollable than our genes. However, the reactions to the uncontrollable environmental variables is what controls your mood and happiness. Although there beliefs are different they still have some common ground. The authors of both articles agree that the people who are happier tend to always have particular behavioral characteristics such as gratitude, kindness, positive relationships,
It is a common thought that happiness is key to a successful life, and many try to find out how to achieve the
To understand positive psychology and trauma, one must first understand what each term means. First, positive psychology is the study and focus on the best in human behavior. It is a fairly new perspective being observed and used by psychologists from all over the world. The goal of positive psychology is to study and promote conditions that can help people achieve happy, healthy, and productive lifestyles. It is derived from research and theories from many areas of psychology and tying them together while focusing on the positive aspects of human behavior.
The movie, Patch Adams, for me is not merely about the life story of the “real” Hunter Patch Adams but rather it portrays, in deeper sense, what should a real physician should be to his or her patients. Aside form his passion to help others; he has this compassion to those around him that I believe was his greater strength in becoming a medical doctor. His intention in helping others was so pure that he was willing to treat his patients for free and was able to influence other medical students, despite the busy and stressful schedule they have during those times, to join him in fulfilling his cause. The movie could inspire many people, especially those that are inclined into medicine.
“Seligman (1998) noted positive psychology’s focus is to make the lives of all people rewarding and to build positive experiences”(Costello & Stone, 2012). His concern and main focus was to train and support staff, faculty, and administrators of positive psychology approaches and overall, helping their students grow as learn...
Positive Psychology is a new millennium version of the power of positive thinking movement. In other words it’s a new millennium health scam. Positive psychology is a branch of psychology that supports the theory that an individual’s happiness is under their personal control, independent of any external influences or validation. However, part of the problem is that this is just one of the many definitions of positive psychology. So if that definition doesn’t suit you, Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2014) define positive psychology as the scientific study of positive human functioning and flourishing on multiple levels that include the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions
At the end of the experiment I will complete the last two steps in the scientific process. I will analyze the data gained and will formulate a conclusion. I don’t think much research has been done of the effects of Positive Psychology on those people with a higher than average level of happiness, since the catalyst for this research came from the desire to augment pathological treatment for depression. It will be interesting to see the impact, if any, on my current level of happiness.
The presence of a faithful and loving partner, a great family life and a successful career may not be enough to prevent an intelligent soul to feel grief and melancholy.
“The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living” is a collaboration by His Holiness the Dalai Lama XIV and Howard C. Cutler, M.D., who identify many possible components that could lead to a happy and satisfying life. Their approach combines and integrates the thoughts of East and West; Buddhist principles and practices on one hand and Western science and psychology on the other. Many everyday difficulties are highlighted in this book, and Dalai Lama and Dr. Cutler attempts to help the readers find appropriate solutions in order to find a balanced and lasting happiness. Dalai Lama’s understanding of the factors that ultimately lead to happiness is based on a lifetime of methodically observing his own mind, exploring the nature of the human condition, and investigating these things within a framework first established by The
In the United States 20% of the adult population report that they are living a flourishing life (Keyes, 2002). However, a high percentage reports feeling as if they are ‘‘stuck’’ or ‘‘want more’’ and are yet not diagnosable with a mental disorder (Fredrickson, 2008). Because happiness has been found to be the source of many desirable life outcomes e.g. career success, marriage, and health, it is of importance to understand, how languishing individuals can reach this ideal state: How can well-being be enhanced and misery reduced (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). Over the past decade, research in the field of positive psychology has emerged to provide evidence-based methods to increase an individual’s psychological well-being, through so called positive psychology interventions (PPI’s). PPI’s are treatment methods or intentional activities used to promote positive feelings or behaviour. PPI’s vary from writing gratitude letters, practicing optimistic thinking and replaying positive experiences. A meta-analysis of 51 independent PPI studies demonstrated significant results in the effectiveness of PPI’s increasing well-being (49 studies; r = .29) (Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009).
Achieving long-term personal happiness is possible with hard work and perseverance by using several methods. Understanding and following various steps to have fulfillment can change your life. By consistently following an assortment of important steps, you will develop a life pattern that is generally happy. Many people throughout history have attempted to find ways to become happier, and share the information with others. While there are occasionally things that should make a person unhappy, it is important to not allow unhappiness to become a lifelong pattern that destroys you mentally and physically. In addition, happy people tend to have more friends and success because they are fun to associate with.
You know when you’re watching a movie and you really connect with it, not just with the characters but you really just get the film? Ever wonder what it is that made you fall in love with a film even if the dialogue or cinematography isn’t everything you hoped for? It’s the sound design! Not to discredit any part of the film, The Pursuit of Happyness, because it is a beautiful film, but the sound design is what truly makes this film so great. It fills all the voids that are sometimes experienced in films. It does this by capitalizing on what the untrained ear calls noise. Another way the sound designers of this film really grab the attention of the audience is by creating a fluid way to make you listen to the sounds simultaneously with the images on the screen. In addition, the realistic sounds in conjunction with synthetic sounds complete the film by providing seamless cuts between scenes. The amalgamations of these three aspects are what make the sound design of The Pursuit of Happyness a truly vital part of the film.
In today’s world it seems that happiness eludes many of the people who search for it. The reason for this is that many of these people may not be looking for happiness in the right places. Many people today do not connect with nature and this may be why happiness eludes them. In this essay the concept of nature connectedness and how it contributes to happiness will be analyzed to determine and answer to the question, how does nature connectedness affect happiness.
Success and happiness are typically seen as two ideas that are dependent on each other. People often believe that in order to be happy one must have a successful life. When reading about success, most of the time people stumble upon happiness bringing success. People have this typical idea of success being money, power, and a luxurious lifestyle with a promising future and a pinch of happiness. However, there will never be a universal explanation as to what success and happiness are because it’s different for every person. In order for someone to feel successful, one must learn how both happiness and success work together. People need to get over the idea of succeeding and achieving goals in order to be content and focus more on being happy with themselves.
Positive psychology has belief that psychology is meant for people to thrive (Garbarino, 2011). It is not merely for examining, suspense-creating or burdening, but for making people feel happy, succeeding, achieving and enjoying everything. It is the attitude towards people and the life, which has played a significant role in popularizing this trend in the field of psychology. This trend of psychology is about how to achieve progress and enjoy life. Though it does not concentrate on failures, this form of psychology indirectly, directs practitioner to think over these issues, as w...