Having a rich social life, choosing a warm and compelling mate, or finding a gratifying career, are strongly linked to happiness. However, they are not fully within our control. We can’t just decide to have a rewarding social life, an adoring and exciting partner or a fulfilling career. Following on, how to be happier flaunts practical ideas that involve things that are under our control.
Here Headlines How To Be Happier
1. Choose The Shorter More Memorable Vacation
Our budget is often limited. Consequently, we are pressed to make some trade-offs or economise. For instance, here are two options to consider. Economising by renting a condo a quarter mile from the beach and avoiding restaurant meals, so that you can stay for two weeks. Second, staying for a shorter period, perhaps only a week, and using the savings to splurge a bit. Indulging yourself means renting a house right next to the beach, treating yourself to a slack-key guitar performance by a local legend. Taking a helicopter flight over the island on your last day, also spotlights.
Cultivating Sublime Memories
All in view, choosing the shorter, more memorable vacation, provides us with more sublime memories to savour. Savoring our memories of walking right onto the beach in the morning, and then again at sunset, and remembering what it looked like to see the coast from the air, are experiences to draw from for a lifetime.
Lesson from, when planning a vacation, it is wise to sacrifice some length of the trip, if it allows you to experience a more sublime high point. Making the sublime moment happen at the very end is all the better. At least, make sure the trip ends with something pleasant, not with frantic hours of running around, buying gifts.
On the same note, faced with a string of unpleasant chores, resist the temptation of leaving the toughest and most tedious to last. This helps to fit our minds with ideas of how to be happier.
2. Focus More On Experiential Purchases That Are not More Satisfying
Material and experiential purchases tend to provide just as much happiness initially. Leaving this beaten path, the thrill of material goods tends to fade, while the enjoyment derived from experiential purchases live on and stimulate more enduring enjoyment in the stories we tell, the memories we cherish, and the enhanced sense of identity and personal development we gain.
Oftentimes, experiences endure. They frequently become better with time, as we embellish the best elements and downplay the worst. For example, with time, and in the telling and reminiscing, a camping trip during which it rained endlessly, and the couple in a nearby tent screamed at each other all through the night, becomes the hilarious camping trip from hell, not the camping trip from hell. Through this, we take a fancy to ideas of how to be happier.
Experiences Endure More Than Material Goods
Also, experiential purchases tend to provide more enduring satisfaction than material goods. They are less likely to trigger comparisons that diminish enjoyment, comparisons to what others have or what we had previously. Experiences tend to be evaluated more on their own terms. We don’t wish to trade our vacations or concert experiences with those of our peers. By the same token, our memories, photos or stories are precious to us. Being outdone by the experiential purchases of others hardly troubles us.
Plus, the social connection fostered by experience, adds to the enduring satisfaction it provides. Most experiences are shared. Again, we tend to tell more stories about our experiences than about our material goods, and our listeners often enjoy it more than we do.
Further, our experiences and what we make of them, make us who we are. Though our possessions might be important parts of our lives, they rarely become important parts of ourselves
3. Get Up And Go, To Avoid The Regrets Of Inaction
We tend to regret more on things we failed to do, than on things we did though it turned out badly. Inaction triggers more regrets than action. The “flow” state, in which a person experiences a deep sense of well-being from being completely immersed, or lost in an activity, deserves a mention. Action is necessary to get into a flow state. Getting outside our comfort zone and actively engaging in the world, physically, artistically or intellectually, help us to find happiness. Striving and making progress promotes happiness. Frequently, we are happiest when we are striving and being actively engaged with the world.
Conclusion
Spending a bit more on experiences than on material possessions, managing the peaks and endpoints of experiences, and starting ourselves off the sofa, all contribute to ideas at core of how to be happier.
