Our Thoughts on Happiness

This page offers you a short presentation of the essential parts of happiness.
As references, we have used several researches from all over the world.

We have defined happiness as a mental status, where a person:

• is content with personal life as a whole
• effects positively on the happiness of other people

You can choose your happiness by doing!

Source 1: Your genes - which often function against your happiness

A vital part of your happiness is based on your genes, inherited from your own parents. This has been found out with research on the happiness of identical twins growing up in different environments. The part of happiness, which is based on genes, has been determined before your birth, leaving no means to influence it yourself. Genes are something you have to live with, and most of all, you should understand the influence of genes.

Instead, your own happiness is greatly influenced by your personal choices, made in crucial situations as well as in your everyday life. In order to make choices that support happiness in life, you should be conscious of this basic truth:

Your genes often function against your own happiness!

Dating back thousands of years, your genetic code has built you a pleasure system, which guides you to reach for short-time happiness. Even though reaching it gives you pleasure, all this fades away quickly. Sweet and fatty food, avoiding physical exercise and aspiration and collecting more and more material things have for thousands of years been excellent ways to guarantee survival, good mating and child birth, as well as to provide children the best possible chance for survival. This all is proved by your own existence.

High-energy food, minimal energy consumption and gathering material goods have in history been excellent ways of reaching the above-mentioned goals. However, the pleasure system built by your genes does not understand, you live in environment, where reaching short-time happiness often functions against your own long-time happiness. You can survive without eating much. You can not get enough exercise sitting by the computer all day, and even a reasonable amount of material things provides you and your children good circumstances for living. The problem is, the code of your genes is inherited from your ancestors, who lived in different circumstances.

To be able to act against the out-of-date instruction given by your genes, you have to understand this problem. After that moment you can guide yourself by your conscious will instead of emotions and instincts.

The first step is the most difficult one, but when you have acted the right way long enough, the nerve system built by your genes starts to demand different action, effecting your feelings. You create a positive circle, where for instance physical exercise becomes your way of life.

Source 2: Early growth environment, which has already effected on your character

Your parents, friends and other persons involved in your early growth environment, have effected on the building of your character.

Research states that the following characteristics are typical of happy people in general: positivity, optimistic attitude, self confidence, paying attention to positive things, being content with personal decisions, thankfulness and forgiving.

Because you can read right now, you have already grown past the phase where the effect of your environment on you is strongest. You should, however, be conscious of how your early growth environment has effected on your character. This way, you get the best possible understanding to improve your happiness with self-guidance.

Source 3: The self-guidance you are using right now!

You make tens, even hundreds of unconscious choices daily, each of them effecting on your happiness. We have collected here 11 conclusions from several research papers on happiness. These conclusions will assist you in finding out what kind of activity best helps you to maintain and increase your own happiness.

Read this, think it through, and then transform the instructions into action!

1. Be part of different social networks and find happy friends
   
2. Have a family; it is a vital energy source
3. Stop craving things; enough is really enough
   
4. Have greater goals than only to make yourself happy; religion, charity.
   
5. Good health; do physical exercise daily, eat healthy, sleep enough
   
6. Have a meaningful and secure work; you spend 50% of your day time in your job!
   
7. Have hobbies; no matter what - but enjoy them
8. Spend time in the nature weekly; your genetic code makes you relax in nature
   
9. Live in a secure democratic country; little protestant countries are the happiest nations in the world - because of freedom, safety, high living standards, equal possibilities to study
   
10. Don't expect to be happy all the time; life is not like an endless ice cream packet
11. Create happiness for people around you:
    a) Give your loved ones good experiences rather than material gifts:
    
    • Send an e-mail or call
      
    • Help people think big - courage them
      
    • Make introductions to new people
    b) Make yourself happy first (see 1-10) :)
    

Print this list here, and write down concrete decisions concerning each conclusion.
Start making them true as soon as possible.

Read your decisions every morning when you wake up and every evening when you go to sleep. This way you can take the subconscious with you to travel towards a happier life. After couple of months, the reading of the list, and the new choices inspired by this, have become a habit. You are on your way towards deeper and longer-lasting happiness.

Happy travelling with self-guidance!

Founders of HappyTellus.com and HappyLetter

Markku Vettenniemi & Hanna Sissala

"Feelings change, happiness stays" Mr Markku Vettenniemi (45) is Finnish Master of Economics, living in Helsinki, capital city of Finland. For me, happiness is an attitude, which is made of positivity, activity, relaxation and being satisfied with my life. Feelings, of course, change, but that is how it should be. Positivity brings more chances than threats to my life - no wonder I have been an entrepreneur already for 20 years. Diverse sports and hobbies are an essential part of my happiness; I participate in orienteering events weekly and am active in the Finnish Society for Future Research, Finnish Mensa and several other organizations. I also enjoy motor sports racing and photography. The wide spectre of my hobbies not only feels good, but also increases my knowledge of myself and other people. I think that happy life comes from balance between different parts of life. Work and leisure, physical and spiritual exercise, solitude and company, creativity and routines - all these are needed for a happy life. Humour and comic situations belongs to every day, so it is just good that Immmm sometimes funny even without meaning it :). The most difficult situations in my life have helped me develop myself in many ways. For example, my burn out, divorce and a serious disease have all afterwards proved to be strokes of luck. What happens in life is actually not as important as our attitude towards the events in our lives!

"Happiness is balance between extremities" Ms Hanna Sissala (27) is Finnish Master of Science, living in Kerava, near capital city Helsinki. Generally, my friends and fellows consider me a nice and cheerful buddy. At times, I even become a bit childish. I have plenty of ideas and want to try out even some silly things that would not normally come up to an average adult. Happiness - it's a resource that comes from many things. Generally, I consider it as a balance between extremities. Happiness, for me, is a mixture of city and nature, people and solitude, thinking and not thinking, work and holiday, physical and mental activities, rain and the sun, sleep and action, new things and known things. Even though I love summer, sun, friends and activity, how could I ever appreciate them if I didn.t know what's winter, darkness, solitude and peace. Even the darkest moments in life: denouncement, divorce or death can be seen beautiful because they give birth to something new. Actually, happiness is a mental state where you appreciate everything as it comes or it is. Moments when I'm not happy? Yes, I certainly know at least two state of affairs when I'm not particularly cheerful: 1) I'm hungry 2) I'm tired. These two are a consequence of a situation where I have had too little of something, in this case food or sleep. Then, there are also situations when I have had too much of a good thing: too much of ice-cream, too much of work, too much of dancing. So let's lead a versatile life and keep our lives in a balance. Let us laugh and cry, dance and sit, socialize and be alone in an amount that our mind and body need. Let's open our mind to the different experiences and sides of life and be astonished about the things we see. Life is miracle and we all are a part of it!

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