What’s Your Happiness Set Point?
And are you using it to maximum advantage?
“Happiness is a choice” is everywhere. In fact I often post memes with that saying. But I ask you this — -is it? Is it really? And if so, how much of it is a choice?
You’ve heard people who say they “just wake up happy” or are “naturally positive,” while others scratch their heads wondering what’s in their coffee and why they don’t feel that same way. There’s the ongoing debate about who’s right — -the pessimist, optimist, or the pessimist who calls him or herself a realist. Research shows a certain amount of happiness can be found in our “set point,” and those gleeful “wake up happy” folks may indeed just wake up that way. It’s not in their coffee.
In recent years psychological research has brought to the forefront a theory commonly known as the “set-point” theory, which states that a person can shift their basic level of happiness (according to parameters set by researchers) only by a certain amount.
In the book “The Happiness Project” Gretchen Rubin recounts her findings.
According to current research in the determination of a person’s level of happiness, genetics accounts for about 50 percent; life circumstances such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income…
