Is there a recipe for happiness?

Eduard Punset and Luis Rojas Marcos have spent years researching the elements that give meaning to happiness. A few months ago, the newspaper "El Mundo" presented a compilation of interviews with different professionals who talked about their "recipes for happiness" and among which the reflections of these two stood out. authors.

This week, the Mensalus Institute for Psychological and Psychiatric Assistance tells us about the recipes of Eduard Punset and Luis Rojas Marcos with the aim of extracting practical guidelines for the entire public.

• Related article: "The 5 types of happiness, and how to reach this state"

What is the recipe for happiness according to these authors

If you want to be happy, according to Eduard Punset:

• Do not look back.
• Find out what your element is and control it.
• Learn to share the joy and pain of others.
• Assume that you are in the tiniest place in the universe. One day humanity will want to explore everything.
• The fifth key is yet to be discovered.

According to Luis Rojas Marcos, if you want be happy:

• Analyze where you are; how you rate your satisfaction with life.
• Think about what makes you feel good.
• Plan your life so that you can do it more.

Being happy: a chimera?

"Satisfaction with life" is a term that Rojas Marcos habitually uses to describe happiness. What meaning can we extract from it?

Talking about satisfaction with life to refer to happiness is a great success. According to this psychiatrist, satisfaction is part of our self-preservation instinct. Unconsciously, memory helps us to relativize because we are programmed to feel good and remember good.

This primitive system focuses especially on what it does to us personally. In addition, it is very comforting to know that we can train you through the exercise of the positive thinking and the recognition of achievements, skills and personal resources among others. Satisfaction with life, in part, depends on us and our attitude. It is in our power to enhance those elements that make it possible.

How to do it will be another objective. Now, positioning ourselves in action instead of contemplation, without a doubt, from the outset offers us the reins of our own life and, with them, the privilege of feeling and enjoying it.

How can we put the recipes of the two authors into practice?

Both recipes summarize useful headlines for everyone and can be extrapolated to any context, hence that they become “slogans” of life rather than concrete indications on what to do to achieve the happiness. Thus, these recipes can guide us to create our own recipe since there will hardly be a "magic recipe" that will give us the key to happiness.

To be more precise, if we take Eduard Punset's recipe as an example, we see that the first point is “don't look back”. This phrase can be translated as "focus on the here and now, do not get hooked on messages from the past that move away from your current reality."

Looking back is helpful when we extract meaning and learning that offers us useful information in the present. When looking at the past becomes an emotional drag, that's when the wings of our freedom and happiness are clipped. An example of constructive reflection on the past would be the following:

• How many times do I look back and blame myself with a "should have done ..."? (being aware of it helps us put limits on repetitive thoughts)
• What can I do now that I haven't done in the past?
• What do I need to make this possible? What personal resources can help me?

These questions exemplify how we can focus on the needs of the present rather than generating ruminative thoughts around the past.

On the other hand, the recipes presented highlight the responsibility of the individual as the engine of change. Responsibility is a "star ingredient" that takes shape when we respond: "What can I do?" (This is when the recipe becomes a practical guideline).

So, is it all about attitude?

The "all" is hardly true. Now, the attitude will determine the vision that we have of the world that surrounds us. For Rojas Marcos, talking about exact percentages is somewhat risky but, leaving the data aside, We can affirm that our ability to be happy depends, to a large extent, on our position in the face of lifetime. The vision we have of ourselves and of others will determine the quality of our relationships. Likewise, the quality of our relationships will determine our "degree" of happiness.

There are many personal skills that play a role in this regard. Specifically, the capacity for emotional expression is a capacity that strengthens ties and allows established communication to enjoy a deeper component.

And what impact has emotional expression had on happiness throughout history?

Happiness is related to the ability to give and receive and, as we said, the emotional expression connects people on a deeper level.

In this case, Eduard Punset points out the importance that the expression of feelings has had on emotional well-being and happiness, something that today occupies an important place in education (the famous Emotional Intelligence) but that, long ago, it was considered a "hindrance" and even a limitation of one's own strengths ("crying is weak" or "expressing emotions does not serve to nothing").

Thus, happiness is linked to this capacity for emotional expression, a capacity that allows the person put a name and surname to her feelings, share them and, thanks to this, create links. Eduard Punset also relates emotional expression and new technologies. This scientist presents the technological advances of the 21st century as a facilitating tool of human relationships to a new level.

That said, how can we understand this new tool?

Without a doubt, technology has opened a new communication window. Perhaps the smartest thing is to know how to use the different channels that are available to us depending on the moment and the context. in which we find ourselves, so that our needs are covered and we find a personal balance and collective.

In short, happiness is that state of satisfaction in which, in an active way, we participate in the present by learning from past and looking to the future, living each of the experiences that the relationship with ourselves and with others gives us. the rest. Finding an exact recipe is complicated, but today we have seen some common points that, adapted to who we are, position us in an active role to be happy.