Monday, December 16, 2002
Part 2:Gratitude has a lot to do with life satisfaction, psychologists say. Talking and writing about what they're grateful for amplifies adults' happiness, new studies show. Other researchers have found that learning to savor even small pleasures has the same effect. And forgiveness is the trait most strongly linked to happiness, says University of Michigan psychologist Christopher Peterson. "It's the queen of all virtues, and probably the hardest to come by," he adds. There's also evidence that altruistic acts boosts happiness in the giver. That doesn't surprise Betsy Taylor, president of the Center for a New American Dream, a Takoma Park, MD, non-profit that favors simple living and opposes commercialism. "The altruism part is worth keeping in mind over the holidays," Taylor says. "Our mantra is 'more fun, less stuff.' Do for others, we say." None of us knows [what will make us happy in the future], says Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert. People expect that events will have a larger and more enduring impact--for good or ill--than they really do, Gilbert's studies find. "If you knew exactly what the future held, you still wouldn't know how much you would like it when you got there," Gilbert says. In pursuing happiness, he suggests "we should have more trust in our own resilience and less confidence in our predictions about how we'll feel. We should be a bit more humble and a bit more brave." I would add, we should have more confidence in God and the fact that He knows what He's doing. I need to review this regularly. posted by #Debi at 10:18 PM | permalink |
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Hi, I'm Debi. Once in a while I have a thought and I like to write it down before it goes away. This is where I write it. 100 things about me
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