Feeling happy as an adult. All unhappy people are unhappy for one reason. What are the things that make adults happy?

Feeling happy is our most basic expectation in life. That's what most people will tell you if you ask them what they aspire to. The desire to be happy is what keeps us moving forward. Unfortunately, not everyone achieves this. Why? Because we misdefine "happiness".

1. It has nothing to do with money. They say it's better to cry in a Ferrari than on a bike, but the example of Denmark proves us wrong. It is among the top 3 countries most comfortable to live in, and Copenhagen is also the most convenient for cyclists. So it seems better to ride a bike than sit in an expensive car to maintain a far-fetched image. Feeling happy has nothing to do with having money.

2. It has nothing to do with material things. We live in a mass consumer society that teaches us that happiness is directly related to what we have. To be happy, we NEED new phone, new SUV or designer suit. We think we will be happy with material things. The fact is that the more things we collect around us, the more dissatisfied we are with our lives.

3. It has nothing to do with beauty. Even the most beautiful women on Earth they are considered too fat or too skinny. They also have problems with self-esteem. Not all of them are the happiest people, and their life is not as fantastic as you think. Happiness is not external beauty and size XS.

4. It affects your mental and physical health. We create our own reality in our own head. Remember your health is one of the most important things. How do you feel when you have a high fever or a terrible migraine? In such a state, how can you feel happy? Appreciate your health and start taking care of yourself.

5. It is associated with the ability to forgive. Internal hurt can be more dangerous than you think. Of course, cheating or betrayal is not a pleasant experience, but the problem is how much you allow this to affect your happiness. Whenever you feel unable to forgive someone, remember that you may have hurt or betrayed another person as well. is the exact opposite of happiness, so try to eliminate it from your life.

6. It has to do with letting go. Sometimes people leave us, sometimes we lose them. Life is not always fair and simple. Some events cannot be calculated and predicted, and we cannot go back, so we need to come to terms with the past in order to live in the present.

7. This is the ability to appreciate what you have. If you are reading this, then you have access to the Internet and a computer. You are most likely not hungry and have a roof over your head. And this is already more than enough. Start appreciating what you have because you are among those who have won the lottery of life.

8. This is the ability to move along your own path without turning off it. The realization of a dream is an amazing feeling, but for this you have to go towards it, sometimes long and difficult. Each step of the way is already a reason to be proud and happy! There is no final destination as there is always the next dream so you need to start getting on with your life journey.

9. This is the ability to live in the present. Anxiety about what the future will bring you, and regrets about actions in the past, often prevent us from living in the only moment we have, and this is our present. There is no time machine. We will never know what is about to happen, and we cannot change what has been done, but we can do something at the moment.

10. This is love. Happy people are those who smile at the world. They are surrounded by loved ones and fall in love with life again and again every day. The feeling of happiness always comes down to your ability to sincerely love.

Feeling of happiness... A person is designed in such a way that he constantly strives for it. But does he know what happiness is? How do we imagine it? What do we do to achieve it and what do we get as a result?

The feeling of happiness: how to achieve it? What is happiness for us and where is it?

First, I want to note, and probably everyone will agree with this, that the feeling of happiness is an intangible category, not one that can be felt. Even if for someone the feeling of happiness arises as a reaction to some object, say, money, then it is not money in itself that is happiness, but the attitude of this person towards them. That is, happiness, its feeling, is a category related to the internal state of a person, and depends on his values. It does not exist by itself, outside of man. And at the same time, a person feels it as a result of interaction with the outside world.

Secondly, can this category be eternal? Within the framework of one person - no, since the person himself is not eternal. Moreover, even within one lifetime, moments of happiness are replaced by suffering. Even an elementary short-term hunger or a cold is already a small suffering that every person has experienced. Suffering is the opposite of feeling happy, and just getting out of that suffering can already feel like happiness. A little suffering is a small happiness, a great suffering is a great happiness. Often we get a feeling of happiness in contrast to suffering.

But it happens that a person does not experience suffering for a very long time, and then he does not separate these two categories, he does not even know that he is happy, he does not have thoughts about this and that something needs to be done, to become happy. He just does what he does, without thinking about being happy, because he is already in it.

Why do some people experience a lot of suffering while others do not? This is perhaps the question that has tormented mankind since ancient times. I'll try to approach his answer from a new perspective - systems-vector psychology and I will try not to hurt the feelings of those who have much suffering.

So, the feeling of happiness in a general sense in system-vector psychology is defined as the pleasure experienced by a person as a response to the filling of his innate properties, desires, which occurs due to his interaction with other people, animals, objects - everything that is around a person. In what role nature has prepared for us, we have no choice. To fulfill it, we are given a set of corresponding desires, which are also beyond our control, and properties (talents) for their implementation, which is called a vector. There are eight in total. A person can have several vectors, and then he will have more desires, and, accordingly, more properties, predispositions. In addition, there is such a thing as temperament - it is, as it were, a quantitative measure of desires in a person. For example, two people with the same vectors, but different temperaments, will have desires of different strengths. Coming into the world with his desires already embedded in him, a person has all the possibilities for their realization - there is everything in the world with which a person can realize them and experience a feeling of happiness.

Every person is born to be happy. Everyone gets the feeling of happiness in their own way.

A huge role in the ways in which a person will receive pleasure and whether he will be able to receive them, and not be constantly in suffering, occasionally experiencing relief, is played by development from birth to 14-15 years old, which is more dependent on parents. Until this age, the given properties develop to a certain level, and already in adulthood we use these properties to satisfy our desires (under certain conditions, the inclinations may not develop at all and even go into a minus, and then we will get a person who is not at all able to receive pleasure).

So, that person who rarely and briefly experiences suffering, who is he? How is it arranged? This is exactly the person whose innate properties, vectors, are not only developed, but also realized: that is, a person is in such conditions and in such an environment where it is possible to realize them, and only them, that is, simultaneously with the manifestation of their own, innate , it is not required to display properties alien to it. This is the mechanism for obtaining pleasure, which is felt inside as happiness. Again, I repeat that it is impossible to feel it in the absence of external conditions conducive to this, in the absence of a society, a collective into which these properties are “carried out”, because “not taken out” properties that have not been released through action are not alive, they are “ go out" inside a person, bringing him suffering, since the plan of nature regarding this person has not been implemented by him.

Here we come to the cause of suffering. Having inside our desires (as it seems to us, our own, but we do not create them) and a certain level of development of our vectors, but not being able to realize them - external conditions - we do not get our pleasure and a feeling of happiness, joy according to the mechanism described above .

So what is our freedom of choice as a person? It seems that it doesn’t exist at all: we don’t choose our desires and innate properties, we don’t choose our role in society either (although sometimes it seems to us that it’s the other way around, but choosing not our role, but someone else’s, we “for some reason” and there is no feeling of happiness). For everyone there is a certain mechanism for obtaining pleasure, which is also not chosen by us.

But then what are we doing here? What can we choose?

In all of this, there is only one variable - these are external conditions. Environment. This concept includes not only people, groups with which a person closely deals, but also books, information, films, everything that surrounds him and somehow affects him. This is the corner in our minds that we equip ourselves, of course, taking into account our initial data. It is in this way that a person is able to experience a feeling of happiness or suffering according to his own choice.

What is the meaning of our suffering? They are a lack of pleasure, happiness, telling us what properties in us remained unused, not brought out, what else nature wants from us, which has placed such a burden on us in the form of our desires. They are the whip that makes us move, live, express ourselves. It will not be possible to sit on the sidelines, we all influence this world in the same way that it affects us.

If we experience suffering, it means that we have gone in the wrong direction, against our nature, and it is all possible ways is trying to return us to our only true path, the path of self-realization and happiness.

Despite seeming fatalism, we actually have a huge arsenal, a huge choice in where we can do it. It's just that for the most part we live with ignorance of these laws, the laws of our human nature, and therefore we poke at random, exploring ourselves through our own experience, most often bad. Or, mired in huge egocentrism, those who disagree with these laws, “fight with the hardness of the stone”, trying to prove to themselves and to someone else that we ourselves determine EVERYTHING, that we are the masters of our lives. However, from the above reasoning, it is clear that we are already them, you just need to know where and what it is - my life. The owner of anything must know and understand what is good and what is bad for this "whatever".

The greatest feeling of happiness and the greatest suffering can come from interacting with other people. A person is born in a team and in it realizes his innate properties, his natural role.

Knowing exactly how to get that very cherished pleasure, a feeling of happiness and experience less suffering, without poking at random, without accumulating bad experience, becomes much easier with the knowledge of one's nature, its laws. These laws, after many centuries of searching, are finally revealed to our understanding and formed into a beautiful, complete system .

Mankind, more deeply comprehending the laws of inanimate nature, has learned to physically live more comfortably, reducing distances with the help of terrestrial, water, air transport, lighting houses not only during the day, but also at night, and even creating a new two-dimensional communication space - the Internet. We have come a long way in the life of the body. The life of the soul and its comfort are far behind in time. Now there is a tool for this.

At the training in system-vector psychology, people not only receive information about How is our mental , about the laws that operate in it and are not visible to the eye, but also naturally learn to live with the knowledge of these laws, receiving more pleasure and less suffering.

Thousands of people around the world are already changed their lives and learned how to make her happier. Your time has come.

Be the author of your own life

People who consider themselves victims of circumstances and unfavorable fate, who are sure that the world will turn to them in some wrong place, and they can change little, who blame others for their failure or bad mood, will never be satisfied with themselves and their life.

But those who soberly assess their capabilities, believe that everything is in his hands, that we are largely the creators of our own destiny, and at the same time remember the factor of luck and external sometimes irresistible forces, are much more successful and satisfied.

Scientists have found that the most important condition for a sense of well-being is the desire for a goal and the process of achieving it. Active life position and purposefulness inspire, and it is this inspiration that fills us with a sense of happiness.

Understand your needs

It is impossible to feel happy if you live not your own life and not your own interests, you do not catch the subtle whisper of your needs and desires. Unfulfilled needs are always a path to dissatisfaction and further to neurosis.

Usually, dissatisfaction is felt as “I feel bad” (or “everything is bad”), “they don’t understand me”, “I can’t be myself”. But! Yet each person is responsible for understanding what he wants and what he lacks.

Therefore, it is so important to establish contact with yourself, listen to yourself and look for answers to the question “what do I want?”, “What is dear and important to me?”, “What will make me happier and how can I achieve this?”

The feeling that you know what you want and choose how, where and with whom you live gives you incredible inner strength and resistance to life's difficulties.

Accept yourself and others as they are

Each person has their own strengths and visible virtues. Everyone has their own set of imperfections. And that's okay. But as long as we do not see, do not recognize and do not accept the most diverse sides of ourselves, we do not accept others either: “Why are you like this? Change!"

We seem to cut ourselves and people in half: this, good and bright, I take, the rest is not necessary, change, hide. Only when we begin to see and accept ourselves in a 3D volume, we see others as multifaceted, untruncated, close to us in some ways, and alien in others.

And we don't want to judge. And we give ourselves and others the right to make mistakes and the right to be ourselves, no better and worse than others. Just the right to be different, with your own temperament, your feelings, "sharp corners", world view, values and interests.

What does this have to do with feeling happy? Most directly: acceptance gives freedom and a sense of self-worth.

It means that you are tolerant of yourself and others, internally agree that they are like that. And just live, realizing the best that you have. For pleasure. Don't beat yourself up bit by bit for imperfection. And don't waste your energy on eradicating the imperfections of others.

See reality and be flexible

I think it's clear what it's about - to see the world, yourself in it and the people around you as real, without rose-colored glasses and illusions. Otherwise, it's like this: "He hasn't called in a week because he has a lot of work." "He does not give flowers, because the old soldier does not know the words of love."

No. He does not call because he is not very interested. Or even not interested at all. And he does not give flowers, because he does not consider it necessary. I would like to please (or at worst get admiration for myself), I would have given it a long time ago.

It would seem that the “vision of reality” in this case does not make you particularly happy (who is pleased to realize that your interest is much higher than the interest of the man you like?). But this is good. This allows you not to waste time. And see everything as it is. And make the right decisions. And do not suffer later from unjustified expectations and erroneous choices.

Flexibility means that you have a wide range of tools at your disposal to cope with life. You do not act according to the same pattern, but change the way you respond. Flexibility means more room for change, which means fewer problems.

Respect and support yourself

Acceptance and vision of reality is, of course, great. But acceptance of others does not mean unconditional and permanent approval. Many people confuse this.

Accepting another person does not mean allowing yourself to be knocked on the head and silently endure everything that is unpleasant and unacceptable. This means understanding what kind of person is next to you, what are their strengths and limitations. Decide for yourself whether you want to deal with him like this.

And if he makes you uncomfortable or (perhaps unintentionally) hurts - tell him about it, and not endure, “accepting”, and not be silent. It's called self-respect.

Self-respect helps you not settle for relationships that hurt and destroy you, and choose those people with whom you feel good and who want to be around. And the ability to take care of oneself and support oneself in difficult situations increases resilience and helps not to be afraid of difficulties: “I have me. Together we'll make it."

Adults are us. We ourselves are responsible for our lives and set an example for children, including an example of how to be happy. Psychologist Irina Chesnova talks about the skills of an adult that help to find happiness.

Be the author of your own life

As an adult, a person begins to build his own life. And here a lot depends on the internal position.

Scientists have found that the most important condition for a sense of well-being is the desire for a goal and the process of achieving it. An active life position and purposefulness inspire, and it is this inspiration that fills us with a sense of happiness.

Understand your needs

Therefore, it is so important to establish contact with yourself, listen to yourself and look for the answer to the question “what do I want?”, “What is dear and important to me?”, “What will make me happier and how can I achieve this?”

The feeling that you know what you want and choose how, where and with whom you live gives you incredible inner strength and resistance to life's difficulties.

Accept yourself and others as they are

Each person has their own strengths and visible virtues. Everyone has their own set of imperfections. And that's okay. But as long as we do not see, recognize and accept the most diverse sides of ourselves, we do not accept others either: “Why are you like this? Change!"

What does this have to do with feeling happy? Most directly: acceptance gives freedom and a sense of self-worth.

See reality and be flexible

Respect and support yourself

Acceptance and vision of reality is, of course, great. But acceptance of others does not mean unconditional and permanent approval. Many people confuse this.

And if he makes you uncomfortable or (perhaps unintentionally) hurts - tell him about it, and not endure, “accepting”, and not be silent. It's called self-respect.

Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a cult American philosopher and psychologist, devoted most of his life to the study of the phenomenon of happiness and founded his own direction in the field of positive psychology, which is gaining more and more popularity. His know-how is the idea of flow, a state of complete inclusion, loss of sense of time, absence of fear and anxiety, dissolution of the ego and a feeling of absolute fullness of life.

The flow is a very powerful experience, it is addictive. We must learn to get out of it at the first demand of reality!

1. Happiness is not something that “happens” to us. You have to learn to be happy. Don't forget that you create (or don't create) happiness every minute with your thoughts. After all, it is you who chooses how to relate to what happens to you.

2. When I set myself the goal of understanding, why some are able to be happy and others are not, I began to study two groups of people. The first is those who have lost everything in their lives, including health and loved ones, but this did not break them. On the contrary, they managed to find a new meaning to live and new incentives for self-development. And they were happier than those to whom fate seemed to be favorable. The second is creative people: artists, musicians, writers. When they were doing what they loved, it was as if nothing else existed for them - they fell into a special state, similar to a drug high. After many years of research, I came to the conclusion that the know-how of both is the ability to control consciousness and manage one's psychic energy.

3. Money wealth and even health is not a guarantee of happiness. Yes, they can improve life, but if you do not know how to manage energy, then you will still be missing something. Seneca said: "The blessings of prosperity are to be desired, but the blessings of adversity are to be admired." There are two types of stress response: neurotic defense, when you blame the whole world for the misfortunes that have fallen on you, and "mature" defense, when you are able to overcome chaos so that at least your head is in order. When problems fall on you, learn to temporarily turn off anger and emotions in general. Try to analyze the situation logically and reformulate the problem so that it is easier to solve using alternative possibilities and strategies.

4. Learn to enjoy every day. I offer a simple way. Make a list of things that you are good at. It is important that they are not too complicated - otherwise you will be nervous. But not too simple - otherwise you will quickly get bored. It is important that you really enjoy doing them, so that during these activities you forget about time and about yourself. Try to devote time to one of these tasks every day and gradually complicate the tasks. This is how you learn to enter the state of flow.

5. Share your Flow with children, teach them to enjoy life. Be honest with them so they know what you expect from them. Worry less about their future and instead listen to what the child is thinking and feeling at the moment. Do not put pressure on children or limit their freedom - let them know that they can do whatever they want, including breaking parental rules, if they are ready to deal with the consequences. Let them with early age learn to entertain themselves. My wife and I never punished our two sons, did not impose our ambitions on them and did not force them to eat or do homework. But from an early age they had the opportunity to do what they were really interested in. We often praised them and sincerely (this is very important - children feel everything!) We were surprised at any of their achievements. (Now they are professors, and each managed to become famous in his field: one is a mathematician, the other is a specialist in Chinese philosophy of the 4th century.) It is also very important that there is communication and trust in the family - then the child will not have anxiety and he will be able to invest his energy not into psychological self-defense, but into self-development. And just love them - without conditions. People who in childhood were afraid that their parents would stop loving them, in adulthood are so worried about the integrity of their own "I" that they are not able to enjoy life.

Don't be afraid to work. At work, it is easiest to enter a state of flow, that is, happiness.

6. The flow is a feeling of the fullness of life, that is, happiness. The more often you are in the Flow, the less your life energy is wasted. And the more joy in your life. This state is not so difficult to learn. I have highlighted a few Flow Rules. First, you need to be good at what you do so that you don't waste your energy on self-doubt. You don't need to introspect because nothing threatens your Ego. The “I” in the flow seems to disappear, but when you leave this state, your “I” becomes stronger. Second: you must be completely focused on the process so that there is no place in your mind for information that is not significant at the moment. Third, the perception of time is changing. Hours turn into minutes, and minutes can stretch into hours. You seem to fall into a narrow time tunnel, where only the present is real. Fourth, you need to have clear goals and the ability to get feedback quickly. Fifth: you completely forget about worries and problems, as if they are no longer in your life. From this, forces and ideas become even greater, as if you are connected to an endless stream of a single cosmic energy. Sixth: you have a feeling of control over the situation and, as a result, over your life.

7. Flow can be entered from almost any job.– from ironing shirts to conquering Everest. The dancer describes it this way: “Concentration becomes all-encompassing. Thoughts stop wandering, you do not think about anything else, completely absorbed in your movement ... Energy seems to flow through you, you feel relaxed, confident and full of strength. And here is what the chess player says: “I have an unusual feeling of inner well-being. I completely control my world, control the course of things and events. A climber friend of mine describes the Flow like this: “It's terribly inspiring to reach new heights in self-discipline. You put your body to work, everything hurts, and then you look back and are delighted with yourself and what you did. It causes ecstasy. If you win enough battles with yourself, it becomes easier to win in the world.”

8. Don't be afraid to work hard. It is during work, and not rest, that there are much more chances to enter the Stream, which means happiness. The main thing is that your work should be varied, that you face interesting, ever-increasing tasks that correspond to your skills, so that your activities have a purpose and an opportunity to receive feedback.

9. Ask yourself: what do you do with your idle hours? Scientists have calculated that the average person of Western civilization spends no more than 30 hours a week directly on work, another 10 hours he is at work, but is idle - playing computer, chatting with colleagues. Twenty hours a week are devoted to leisure, of which seven hours are spent watching TV, three hours are reading, two are playing sports, and another seven are socializing and having fun. There are still 50-60 hours of wakefulness left. Our ancestors had much less free time, but it is not a fact that we enjoy life more than they do.

Surprise is a reflection of the purest form of pleasure.

10. Once I did an experience sampling experiment. It turned out that we feel happier doing our favorite things, which require an investment not of money, but of psychic energy, that is, our full attention. These things include: chatting with friends, reading, interesting work.

11. Don't become a slave to your hobbies. Don't do sports, for example (it's one of the most accessible "streaming" activities, by the way, if approached correctly) because it's a "must" or because it's trendy. Ordinary walks can bring no less joy than membership in an expensive fitness club. But do not walk "on autopilot", try to control the process. Set a goal for yourself, such as learning race walking, and come up with as many intermediate goals as possible related to it (for example, increase the distance traveled a little each time). Measure your own progress, celebrate even small victories and gradually raise the bar.

12. Democritus said that the greatest good in life is "a mind free from fear." Egocentrics and shy people find it harder to be happy. Excessive psychological protection, eternal focus on yourself, worry about how you look and what they think of you are the vampires of your energy.

13. Watch a person who is passionate about the game: he is fully involved in the process, does not think about the result, his ego is not included. All his energy is directed to the "here and now", he is very good. Work is the same game, only better. The great biochemist Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel Prizes, worked non-stop all his life - he died at 93. He once told me that he does not know the feeling of fatigue at all. Where did he get the energy from? He treated work like a game.

14. Try to find meaning in everything you do. Spend your psychic energy not on doubts, regrets, feelings of guilt or fear, but on things that you consider useful and that please you.

15. Be surprised. Be even more surprised. Francis Bacon already guessed 400 years ago that surprise is a reflection of the purest form of pleasure.

16. Learn by heart - poems, lyrics. This is a method of mind control - you can always find a meaningful reason for joy in the bins of your memory. Read verses to yourself by heart - they allow the mind to keep experiences in a concentrated form and, if necessary, to articulate exactly what kind of emotion is haunting you.

17. Don't waste your energy trying to fill your time to avoid being alone. Learn to enjoy the moments when you are left alone. They are a great opportunity to know yourself and try to manage your world.

18. Flow is a very powerful experience, this state is addictive. Do you remember what happened to the hero of Nabokov's novel "Luzhin's Defense"? Do not lose your vigilance, do not seek to escape into the Stream from real life! Learn not only to enter the Stream, but also to leave it at the first demand of reality, otherwise it will destroy you.

19. Taoists 2300 years ago guessed that the only right way of life is to act spontaneously without thinking about external benefits and merging with the world. Trust yourself, your abilities, the world as a whole and your place in it. Act with confidence and the best decisions will come naturally.

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