It’s been 222 (of 365) Days since we started this journey of #PrayersWrappedInQuotes! 🙏 🕯️ REFLECTION GUIDE below ⬇️
😊 as you read this! Your day is going to be awesome!
🕯️: Today, I invite you to reflect on how we are easily deceived about what makes us happy. The new Science of Happiness has a word for it: MISWANTING. It refers to the fact that people make mistakes about how much they will like something in the future. Many of the things we think will make us happy — more money, a promotion, that nice car, the perfect partner, that beautiful house, or that exciting vacation — won’t make us happier than we are today; or if they do make us happier, that extra happiness won’t last for long.
On the other hand, it also means we are poor predictors of the impact that bad things have on us. We are afraid that we’ll get sick, or our business failing or losing a job, or marriage breaking apart. Yet, we’re typically wrong about the impact those things have on us too — they don’t turn out nearly as bad as we imagined they would.
Understanding MISWANTING is critical because WHAT WE WANT ultimately depends on our PREDICTED FUTURE STATE OF MIND. And the science says we are usually wrong about it: we think we’ll be happier if we have more, or less happy if we have less. But the science says otherwise. People who win the lottery are not happier a year or two after winning. And people who fail are not less happy than their baseline a year or two after their failure. Each of us has this baseline — a “set point of happiness;” and while we have ups and downs throughout our lives, these are temporary. No matter what life throws at us, over time, our happiness bounces back to the same set point. Long-term happiness is rooted in internal circumstances, not external ones. The key to happiness then is to make our SET POINTS higher over time.
Start by doing the following:
1) Spend the next 10 mins in silence. Listen to your breath as you reflect on habits and behaviours that encourage or discourage your internal sense of well being. Bring them to awareness and plan your actions.
2) Think of 3 things to be thankful for today.
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