Knowing how to manage happiness: a practical guide

A few days ago I had a very interesting conversation with a colleague and a wonderful friend, about her life and how to deal with it properly.

Her experience, like mine, when talking with patients and also with acquaintances and friends, is summarized in that generally life is perceived as something complicated and happiness as something ethereal, immaterial and constantly escaping. That it is a perishable state, temporarily short, almost unattainable, that it is out somewhere, that it does not depend on oneself, that it cannot be controlled ...

However, can you be happy even while immersed in painful situations? Does happiness depend exclusively of what one has achieved, or that everything around us is perfect and marvelous? Doesn't happiness depend on how we manage it?

• Related article: "The 10 keys to being happy, according to science"

What is really happiness?

Happiness is usually described as a state of great spiritual and physical satisfaction with the absence of inconveniences or stumbles. It is a state that would be achieved when we achieve our goals.

However, there are people who, even having your basic needs covered (have work, resources, housing, family and friends, etc.) are not happy... Why is this happening?

Here we should mention what in social psychology is called Control locus (LC). It is about the belief (and its assumption) according to which, the events that happen to us depend exclusively from external forces that we do not control (External LC) or from our own effort (LC Internal).

It is clear that we do not always show a single LC at all times, since it is a continuum through which we move according to events, but we do set a trend.

Know how to manage happiness

Thus, those people with an internal LC will be more likely to take responsibility for their own actions, they will be less influenced by the opinions of Others will tend to perceive themselves as effective and confident in their obligations, they will tend to make an effort in what they do, and they will report being happier and independent.

By cons, those with an external LC, blame forces external to them for everything that happens to them, they tend to attribute to luck or chance any success or failure they obtain, they do not believe they are capable of changing their situation through your own efforts, often feeling hopeless or powerless in the face of situations difficult; thus they are more likely to experience what is known as "learned hopelessness."

The way we learn to manage happiness through the locus of controlConsequently, it greatly influences how we feel.

What does it mean to be happy?

In our experience (my personal and also that of my colleague) happiness lies within us, is an internal state of peace and well-being. We must differentiate it from joy and satisfaction, since these are fleeting feelings.

Already Aristotle he mentioned that "happiness depends on ourselves." For his part, Lao Tzu understood that “happiness lies in the ability to live and enjoy the present moment, Because if you were aware of the past or constantly projecting the future, you would develop anxiety and stress".

When we manage to quiet our mind, manage and fully enjoy our present and who we are, we can feel immersed in an ocean of peace and well-being, which leads us to experience that long-awaited happiness. Understanding it in this way, it becomes an almost constant state, not so fickle, that lasts even in painful or complicated moments of our lives.

Be happy It does not mean that at a certain moment you cannot cry for a lost, or you may be stressed by a certain event, on the contrary, that state will allow us to have more resources and strengths to cope with those events, since our way of Thinking will not depend on the external, it will be alien to it, being able to adapt to each circumstance, allowing us to see the exit of the tunnel at all times, giving that light that guides and elevates us.