What now?
That appears to be the burning query of the day.
“Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat,” the previous tune tells us. Well now Christmas is over and our goose is cooked.
The vacation sweets have taken up roughly everlasting residence round our tummies and thighs, the payments are starting to trickle in and all of the commercials on TV are promising to assist us shed some pounds, restore our a bad credit score or do our taxes to maintain the IRS wolves from our door.
Grocery costs are nonetheless sky excessive, as are rates of interest, because of the Federal Reserve’s actions to attempt to cool runaway inflation. And guess what, the 2024 presidential race has already begun, thus assuring us of much more spin, blowing smoke and shifting positions because the months roll on.
Add to that the very fact winter has barely began, and there appears to be darn little to be completely happy about.
But a massive dose of happiness is simply what we want whereas we attempt to persuade ourselves nibbling on rice desserts and exercising is simply as satisfying as munching on Christmas cookies and curling up on the sofa watching Hallmark motion pictures.
Happy, to place it merely, is wholesome, a minimum of in accordance with a research carried out by scientists in Britain.
A survey of some 3,000 British adults discovered those that reported being completely happy exhibited decrease ranges of cortisol, a hormone produced when persons are below stress. Consistently excessive ranges of cortisol might contribute to hypertension, stomach weight problems and a weakened immune system, amongst different illnesses.
Even women and men within the research who produce other well being threat components like age, weight and smoking had been discovered to have decrease cortisol ranges over the course of the day after they reported completely happy moods.
In ladies, but not males, happier moods additionally had been discovered to contribute to decrease ranges of C-reactive protein and interlukin 6, two indicators of irritation within the physique.
Happiness, after all, is as elusive as $2 gasoline, Bigfoot and trustworthy politicians. Punch “happiness” into the world’s hottest Internet search engine, and you’re going to get 1.6 billion outcomes.
Incidentally, the happiest place on earth is not Disneyland, regardless of the mouse’s advertising slogan, but Finland, a minimum of in accordance with the Gallup World Poll. The happiest metropolis in America, says smartasset.com, is Sunnyvale, Calif., whereas the unhappiest is Pine Bluff, Ark., says Sharecare’s Community Well-Being Index. The happiest state within the U.S., says the monetary web site WalletHub, is Hawaii, whereas the unhappiest is West Virginia. Oklahoma, by the way, is No. 7 on the checklist of unhappiest states.
If you possibly can one way or the other distill the key of happiness and put it in a bottle, you’d be rich past your wildest goals. It by no means will occur, after all. There are as many definitions of happiness as there are individuals on this planet.
“Happiness is a warm puppy,” Charles Schultz as soon as wrote. But puppies go away heat puddles on the kitchen flooring and have a disturbing tendency to chew every thing in sight.
“Happiness is a warm gun,” John Lennon and Paul McCartney as soon as wrote. To every his personal, I suppose.
Happiness is not success, a minimum of in accordance with Albert Schweitzer. The famed doctor and thinker outlined happiness this fashion: “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
Happiness is serving to others, in accordance with Buddha. “Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others,” he stated.
Happiness is not essentially the pursuit of happiness. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, “Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
For the thinker Sophocles, “Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness,” whereas for girls’s rights advocate Susan B. Anthony, “Independence is happiness.” Aristotle stated, “Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient,” whereas former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli stated, “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”
Personally I want the definition of happiness supplied by a tune from the musical “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown,” one line of which says, “For happiness is anyone and anything at all that’s loved by you.”
You’ve obtained to like that sort of pondering.
Mullin is an award-winning author and columnist who retired in 2017 after 41 years with the News and Eagle. Email him at [email protected] or write him in care of the Enid News & Eagle at PO Box 1192, Enid, OK, 73702.
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Mullin is an award-winning author and columnist who retired in 2017 after 41 years with the News & Eagle. Email him at [email protected] or write him in care of the Enid News & Eagle at PO Box 1192, Enid, OK, 73702.
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