Asterism

14. happiness formula

comment your thoughts/reactions etc if you'd like, it's my favourite thing to read😍 I'll be responding to comments so let's chat :) -ave

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IN 2002, a psychologist named Martin Seligman published a book: Authentic Happiness, which contained information about living a happier life backed by years of scientific research.

In this book was a formula for happiness.

H = S + C + V.

Now, for a girl in which Young's modulus, electric field formula and Bernoulli's equation is more her speed - the happiness formula seems like a waste of intellectual time to look into. But there were points in Marley's life where she wanted nothing more than to be happy, than to not let the world touch her so much, so it would only make all the sense in the world that she would use the mathematical form of how to achieve it.

The formula is as follows: H is your enduring level of happiness, or long term happiness, S is your set range, which is your genetic disposition to a certain level of happiness that you will always find your way back to, C is your circumstances, and V is voluntary variables - what you can control.

Whether it is surprising or not, voluntary variables accounts for forty percent of your overall happiness, and is the most heavily weighted factor of the 'happiness formula'. Voluntary variables accounts for how positive your emotions are about your past, present, and future. Therefore, a surefire way to raise your happiness above every other out of control factor is to change how you feel in your day-to-day life by altering your thought patterns and outlook.

The book details how to do this, and it isn't easy, but the point is that a majority of your happiness is in your control, whether you have higher genetic influence or worse life circumstances or a lower set level.

You will always have more power than outside forces to overall contentment in your life. Which means it has to come from inside, inside your mind, inside your heart.

Being happy, truly happy, is an internal exercise, a mindset that you can only have for yourself.

It took Marley too long to realize that she can't fill her cup with someone else's water. True happiness is loving yourself and accepting your circumstances, and no one can do those things for her.

Her boyfriend, her family, cannot love her into being happy, they cannot fix her into being unbroken - not until Marley picks up the tools, not until she puts all of her energy into herself for the first time in her life.

Leaving her new therapist Amber's office after her first one-hour session, Marley felt like she had a taken an important step to success. They hadn't talked about her, not yet. Even with her best friend that she's known since they were young, Marley finds it difficult to open up, so it will take time to be willing to share with Amber.

But, they had a nice time. They'd chatted about current events, Marley's classes, her grades. Her job and her dorm room.

She also told Amber about her photography gig, and about how she goes for walks alone. She told her new therapist how she and Ayla made an agreement to do yoga every Saturday now, and how Marley had also quit the decathlon team to clear some of her over-crowded plate.

After all, you can't work on yourself if you literally don't have the time to work on yourself. Marley's been relying on her busy schedule and stacks of books up to her eyeballs, as distractions from thinking too much. But, thinking is good, being with yourself is good.

Overall, Marley's first session was intake information and small talk, but Amber told her with some clients it takes weeks of sessions to get them to speak a single word, so Marley should be proud of herself for walking into the room and talking, no matter what it was about.