I’m reading Authentic Happiness by Martin E. P. Seligman, PH.D. In the first chapter of the book he describes some studies that indicate that people who have a generally happy outlook on life and tend to be optimists overall generally live healthier and longer lives. They also have fuller social networks and social lives, are more likely to be married, and more likely to be happily married compared to overall unhappy or pessimistic people. So there seems to be a real benefit in being happy versus being unhappy.
He also points out that most people have multiple areas of weakness as well as multiple areas of strength. He recommends building on our areas of strengths rather than focusing on our areas of weaknesses and trying to improve them. What do you readers think about increasing your strengths and not worrying about your weaknesses? Does this make sense or not? Seligman also suggests it is good for us to challenge ourselves to do better than our own past performances but not to compare ourselves to others or to challenge ourselves trying to do better than another person’s performance.
Another point he makes is that an individual has a “set point” for happiness that is genetic and that set point may account for 50% of our ability to be happy. Circumstances may change and cause us to be happier as a result of those new circumstances but we “get used to” the new circumstances quickly and revert to our previous happiness set point. But despite this set point, some traits such as pessimism and fearfulness are changeable and when changed can permanently improve our happiness. Have any of you seen evidence in this “set point” in your own lives?
Circumstances such as wealth or the lack of same, or health or lack of same do not affect one’s ability to be happy in the long term. Neither does a lack of negative or painful events in our life cause us to have more happiness. We can have a great deal of happiness despite many negative and/or painful events in our lives. Contrary to circumstances, a strong religious faith does tend to make an individual happier. Optimism tends to go hand in hand with hope and expecting the best and what we expect is often what we get. Unfortunately, if we have no hope but are steeped in pessimism we are inviting unhappy events into our lives. And that only gets us up to chapter five in the book.
Now on to my work on increasing my spiritual growth. One of the assignments in the Advanced Christian Coaching class I’m taking includes a booklet on the Art of Solitude. We are told to meditate in solitude, beginning with five minutes. During our meditation we should concentrate on an image of Jesus and allow our others thoughts to just float by. Our reality is Jesus and the other thoughts that try to intrude are just brief episodes of perception. We are supposed to do this exercise daily for 21 days, gradually increasing our time until we are up to 20 minutes of solitude and hopefully have decreased significantly the outside thoughts that try to intrude. Only though solitude and quiet listening to the Lord will we be able to hear Him tell us what he wants us to do with our lives and how to handle the problems we may have.
Any ideas relating to spiritual growth from any readers? Is anyone else feeling a need to grow spiritually?
