RAYMOUND JOHN B.

ALOB
10 – ST. MATTHEW
RW # 4
THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
The Happiness Formula

H=S+C+V

H: stands for enduring level of happiness, S: is your set range, C: is the circumstances in

your life, and V: represents factors under your voluntary control.

H: Your Enduring Level of Happiness

It’s important to distinguish between your momentary level of happiness and your

enduring level of happiness. Momentary happiness can easily be increased by little joys

such as praise from your boss, chocolate, a fun movie, sex, flowers, or a massage.

Increasing the number of transient bursts of happiness in your life, however, is not the

goal here. Instead, the goal is to raise your enduring level of happiness(which won’t be

accomplished by merely increasing the number of bursts of momentary positive

feelings).

S: Your Set Range

Some discouraging news: About 50 percent of your happiness is completely out of your

control because it depends on your genes. You may be genetically wired to be very

happy most of the time. Or you may be genetically wired to be sad most of the time. Or

you’re somewhere in the middle. The point is, your genes make up for 50 percent of
your happiness, and that can’t be changed. This means you have a so-called happiness

set-point to which you will always gravitate towards in good as well as in bad times.

C: Circumstances

If you want to lastingly raise your level of happiness by changing the external

circumstances of your life, Martin Seligman says the following strategies are proven to

work: The good news is that there are a set of internal circumstances that are easier to

change and will have a greater impact on your happiness. These internal circumstances

are what the last variable, V, is all about.

V: Voluntary Variables

If you want to change your enduring level of happiness, this is where the money is. The

Voluntary Variables account for about 40 percent of your happiness and get divided into

three buckets:

Positive emotions about the past (e.g. satisfaction, contentment, fulfillment, pride, and

serenity), Positive emotions about the future (e.g. optimism, hope, faith, and trust),

Positive emotions about the present (e.g. joy, ecstasy, calm, test, ebullience, pleasure,

and flow), The more positive emotion you have about past, future, and present, the

happier you will be. Therefore, to raise your lasting level of happiness, you have to

change how you feel about your past, how you think about the future, and how you

experience the present. Let go of thinking that your past determines your future. This

belief engenders a certain passivity about life that is not going to be any helpful. The

remedy is an easy one. Simply realize that you have a fairly big amount of control over
life. You can make yourself happier. You can become more successful. And, of course,

you can achieve a lot of great things if you put in the work and stay patient.

INSIGHTS:

There are some aspects in this book that I learned and understand which I can

apply in my life as I journey towards my future. First is to disregard false beliefs about

the pursuit of happiness, know the importance of gratitude/keeping things in

perspective when things go wrong, understand the importance of prosocial behavior,

feeling a sense that you are connected to something bigger than yourself, value the

importance of sleep and exercise for psychological health, and lastly is know my

emotional intelligence and not jumping to conclusions about what others are thinking

and feeling. I should e grateful about the good things in my past. Gratitude amplifies the

good events that happened to you in the past. To ignite feelings of gratitude about your

past, you can try writing a gratitude letter or journal about things/events/people you’re

grateful for on a regular basis. I should learn to forgive past wrongs. Forgiveness is all

about loosening the power of bad events in the past to embitter you. Holding on to

anger, resentment, pity, or any other negative emotion over a past event will lower your

levels of happiness.