This edition first published 2018.
© 2018 Gill Hasson
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hasson, Gill, author.
Title: Happiness : how to get into the habit of being happy / Gill Hasson.
Description: Chichester, West Sussex, United Kingdom : John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2018. | Includes index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018026832 (print) | ISBN 9780857087591 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Happiness.
Classification: LCC BF575.H27 H384 2018 (print) | DDC 158— dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018026832
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-857-08759-1 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-857-08762-1 (ebk)
ISBN 978-0-857-08756-0 (ebk)
Cover design: Wiley
Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall, UK
To Tom with love from Mum xx
Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
– Abraham Lincoln
We may all have different abilities, interests and lifestyles, goals, values, beliefs, and expectations, but there’s one thing that we all have in common: we want to be happy.
How happy are you right now? How happy are you with your life in general, as a whole? Would you like to be happier? How much happier? Of course, it’s not really possible to measure happiness; there’s no point system or way to measure the happiness flowing through your bloodstream. But we don’t really need to be able to measure happiness in order to know whether we’re happy or not. And it seems that so many of us aren’t.
Levels of anxiety, stress, loneliness, and depression appear to have escalated in recent years. The mental health charity Mind reports that, in England, one in six people report experiencing a common mental health problem (such as anxiety or depression) in any given week. A survey of 2330 people in the UK carried out in 2014 by YouGov for The Mental Health Foundation revealed that almost one in five people feel anxious ‘nearly all of the time’ or ‘a lot of the time’.
A survey carried out in the UK in 2017 for the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness showed that almost three-quarters of older people in the UK are lonely – but anyone who is socially isolated as a result of, for example, the loss of family and friends, unemployment, a disability, illness, or caring for others can also experience the unhappiness that comes with feelings of loneliness.
Even if you aren’t lonely or experiencing a mental health problem – even if your life is OK – it seems that the pressure to be happy and successful is greater than ever before. These days, it’s not just having money, a great job, a nice home, a good relationship, and lots of friends that defines a successful life, but how happy you are and how often you’re happy.
For many of us, it’s become important to appear super happy all the time; to share happy news, post happy photos, tweet happy tweets. Due to social media’s obsession with joy, it can seem like everyone else is achieving nirvana levels of happiness and bliss. In fact, a 2017 poll by the charity Girlguiding, of girls and young women aged 11–21, found that one in three feel under pressure to present themselves as having a ‘perfect’ life on social media.
It’s easy to feel bad about ourselves for not being happy. And that just makes us feel worse. How come life is so rosy for other people? Maybe you think happiness is a matter of luck. It’s not. Happiness is not a matter of coincidence or good luck. Neither, as Chapter 1 explains, is happiness a matter of living a blameless life or being in the right place at the right time. Happiness isn’t given to you, you can’t expect someone else to make you happy, you can’t wait for the stars to align before you can be happy, and you can’t just ‘be happy’.
Quite simply, happiness is a matter of following your human instinct to find purpose and meaning, to manage the challenges that come with finding purpose and meaning, and to enjoy the small pleasures in life. This book – Happiness – will show you how to do that.
You will learn that happiness doesn’t happen by chance – it’s a result of the thought, time, and effort you put into pursuing and maintaining happiness. Happiness comes from identifying what’s important in your life – in the different areas of your life: your work, your relationships, your hobbies and interests, your health, and so on – and having aims and purpose in those areas. Chapter 2 explains how you can identify and work towards what will make you happy (not what you think will make you happy or what other people think will make you happy).
Being happy – living according to your values, having goals, doing what is important to you and has meaning for you – not only involves making an effort and persevering, taking some risks and making sacrifices. It also means stepping out of your comfort zone. There will always be challenges and difficulties involved in pursuing happiness, but if you don’t push yourself, nothing will change and you won’t be happier. Chapter 3 explains how each time you extend your comfort zone you extend your happiness.
However, it could be that there’s something you need to stop doing; something you need to let go of before you can commit and pursue the things or thing that would make you happy. Chapter 3 also has plenty of encouragement and advice on how to let go of unhappy situations and circumstances so you can move on to happier times.
Chapter 4 discusses the little things in life that can make you happy. Whatever your circumstances, whatever your abilities, however much money you do or don’t have, there’s a world of small pleasures which can bring you moments of happiness every day. Often, these small pleasures can be the things you do with other people. Chapter 4 explains how almost anything we do to improve our connections with others tends to improve our happiness as well.
However, there will be times in all our lives when there are very real challenges to being happy; times when you’re stuck in a situation – a job you dislike, for example – and you can see no way out. There are, though, things you can do to make the best out of a bad job. Chapter 5 explains what those things are.
How can you find any happiness when you’ve suffered or are suffering a serious difficulty? No doubt the last thing you can imagine is being happy. Chapter 5 discusses how you can find hope and therefore some happiness when life is really tough.
Having learnt how to find purpose and meaning in your life, and about the importance of identifying and indulging in small pleasures, connecting with other people, and knowing how to find some degree of happiness during difficult periods of your life, Chapter 6 looks at how you can help other people be happy. When someone you love and care about is unhappy, you feel it too; but whether you just want them to be happy so you can be happy, or you believe that you have the solutions to their problems, you cannot make it your mission to ‘fix’ them and make them happy. You can, though, be supportive. Chapter 6 explains how.
Finally, just in case you need some encouragement to make the effort to pursue happiness, you might find it helpful to know what some of the benefits of happiness are. When you’re living a happy life, you
With this book – Happiness – you will learn how to make happiness a habit. You will discover how to live a good life; a life that, despite its inevitable ups and downs, is both meaningful and pleasurable.
A happy life!