Thinking about Happiness
吴小丽 201020128365

During the summer, I watched the video lecture, Positive Psychoogy and I thought a lot about it. In this fierce society, we have to become hurried to do everything, so that we have neglected a lot of happiness in our life.
In this lecture, we learned that we should learn to analyze the same information from different aspects. In our life, we need transformation but not only information. Most of education today is about information. In the lecture, Tal made an explanation of “information” by drawing a container. To some extent, the container is our mind. And information is about taking data, taking science, taking information and putting it inside the container. When the container is filled, the students are educated. The more information, the better. But only the information is not enough. Because it’s not just information that determines our wellbeing, our self-esteem, our motivational level, the relationship and the quality of our relationships. It is much more than information. Information in and of itself is not enough. For example, you go for an athletic meet. Your aim is to get into the top three to be a medalist. You come in number eight. What’s your analysis? Will you feel terrible or deflated or enervated? On the other hand, the exact same event, you come eight when you expect to be top three. Some people will think, I need to become more energized or I learned from the experience. In other words, the same objective information which is “I got eight; I expected top three”. The same information, very different interpretation. One is a disaster, the other interpretation is an opportunity. One leads to loss of energy, the other one to increasing energy.
From this example, I know that we should learn to look at the same event from different point. What’s more, we should analyze the event from the good point. Thinking from the good point will let us keep a good mood. However, if from the bad point just let us in bad mood. In this society, we can not change the society, what we can do is change our state of mind. Many people around the world who seemly have everything, who are doing well, who have more than they need, and yet they are unhappy. And then there are people around the world who have very little. And yet they never cease or never stop to celebrate life. In these cases, it is not the information that goes in but also the shape, the interpretation, the perception, the focus. And that is determined by the shape of the container. The interpretation matters very often a lot more as we’ll see than the information that goes in. at this time, the transformation is important for wellbeing. What we’ll do is uncover potential that we have inside, that we have inside of us all along. We uncover it so that we can utilize it.
Happiness is much more contingent on our state of mind than our status or the state of our bank account. It is really right. Even though one has much money, yet he doesn’t have the feeling of happiness. I have a cousin. She married a rich man. Every day, she can buy what she wants. She can go to many exciting places for play. But she is not happy. The man is always not at home. The house is big and luxurious but she is lonely, very lonely. Yes, money can not buy happiness. For me, I haven’t thought that I would be so rich in the future. I just hope that I have a stable job and have a happy family. That is enough. Even though I was born and grew up in a poor family. I am afraid of the poor life. I want to live a rich life. But I won’t sacrifice myself to marry an affluent 2nd generation. Marrying that kind of person is not happy.
What is happiness? For me, it is easy to satisfy. Here I want to share one of my experiences. When I was preparing the postgraduate exam, I was so busy with books every day. I admired the other students very much. I really wanted to stop to enjoy the peaceful campus life. But I could not stop. I could not afford the time. The exam-day was coming. If I wanted to pass the exam, I must read and read again. I must stick to the end. So I had no time to enjoy the sight of our campus. At that time, when I can’t appreciate the campus, my happiness is enjoy the sight and the life. So for me, happiness is not the money. Happiness should be like that you can do what you like in your life. But most of people are not aware of happiness when they own happiness. When the students can enjoy the campus life, they don’t realize that is a kind of happiness. But they can realize that is happiness until they lose it.
From this video lecture, I have thought over many things. The thinking let me learn to grow up to pursue my happiness in my life all the way.