What is happiness and how to achieve it

Probably every person at least once in his life tried to find out what happiness is and how it can be achieved. This ephemeral concept has a hundred definitions, a bunch of interpretations, but sometimes even the most common ones are difficult to relate to real life. What is it, and is it possible to come up with a specific definition for happiness?

Possible definitions

The concept itself even has too many definitions. For some, happiness is determined by family well-being, and someone feels unearthly satisfaction from career success. Generally speaking, happiness is a moral state characterized by complete satisfaction with the conditions of its being.

Most often, the following things make a person happy:

family or satisfactory relationship with a partner;
career achievements and material benefits;
fulfillment of an old dream;
self-realization in the works or in any other field of activity;
feeling of harmony with your own inner world.

So what is happiness for a modern person? Psychologists usually define this concept as a feeling of satisfaction in the career, love and spiritual life. The most interesting thing is that in the absence of success in one way or another, a person does not feel the necessary satisfaction. Sometimes adjusting his personal life, he begins to suffer due to the lack of career prospects.

One of the important features of happiness is that it seldom lingers in a person’s life for long. More often it cannot be felt until it is lost. Sometimes only having lost the previous well-being, a person realizes how much earlier he was happy.

Philosophers approached this issue in their own way. For example, Aristotle believed that happiness lies in virtue. Leonardo da Vinci believed that this state is achievable only with hard work. And Ivan Bunin and at all called for seeing happiness in the surrounding trifles, for example, in the clean air and the beauty of the autumn garden.

The interpretation of this concept is devoted to literary works, poems and songs, but this does not change the established fact: to determine what it is, everyone needs to be on their own. Sometimes you have to go through a lot of trials, try different professions. Sometimes it is impossible to achieve happiness at all, but in fact, every person is capable of it, regardless of his age and social status.

Ways to achieve

Having decided what happiness is for him personally, a person usually tries to understand how to achieve the desired state. It is all individually: someone needs a lot of work to do this, and someone needs to look for an ideal partner. Psychologists believe that there are methods of achieving happiness. Which of them can be called the most effective?

constantly grow and develop, improving their inner world;
learn to rejoice in trifles and rise above petty troubles;
work towards a specific goal, rather than striving for an ephemeral dream;
learn to recognize happiness in everyday life;
not giving up in the face of terrible trials, again and again finding a pleasant sensation.

The main secret of gaining is to be able to notice it in your own life. This concept itself is a mirage that prevents a person from living and enjoying little things. Constantly striving for some ultimate dream, a person misses the very moments that could bring notes of complete satisfaction to his life.

Also, psychologists believe that there are two ways to achieve happiness - internal and external. The external version implies the achievement of family and material well-being, and for the internal one you will have to improve your own personality. The first way is considered simpler, because sometimes it is not possible to achieve internal balance over a lifetime. At the very moment when a person reaches the maximum external well-being and inner ideal state, he will comprehend happiness, so ghostly and fragile.

Secrets of true happiness

Despite the fact that this very concept is interpreted by each person in its own way, psychologists and philosophers have been able to reveal several secrets conducive to its achievement. What secrets are always important to remember for modern man?

Happiness is achievable only if the person knows what he needs. Undecided with dreams and goals, the person is lost and deeply unhappy.
It is necessary to live here and now, not counting on finding that same, ideal state in many years.
We must learn to let go of things and people who are unable to make a person happy.
The absence of fear and doubt will help a person to achieve the desired state much faster.
It is important to remember that the more a person wants happiness, the harder it is to reach him. If he lets go of the situation, the desire suddenly becomes a reality.

Sometimes in order to acquire that very ideal state, it is enough to forget about great dreams and rejoice in what a person already has. It is pleasant little things, ghostly memories and positive dreams completely change life, making it much more satisfactory.

Psychologists advise their patients in time to give up what does not make them happy. Relationship with an unloved person, poor work, not bringing pleasure, communication with a limited and boring environment - all this only alienates the person from the desired state. Until he learns to let go of those who make him unhappy, the ideal state of complete satisfaction cannot be achieved.

Even the great minds of modernity could not say exactly what happiness was. Philosophers have been struggling with this question for centuries and did not find the right answer. The whole difficulty lies in the fact that happiness is individual for everyone and is so easy to lose. However, you should never despair, because those who are morally growing and know what they are striving for can always regain this state even once they have missed it.