Happiness

1. Happiness is to the soul what health is to the body, therefore virtue is to happiness what exercise is to health. (6/9/13)
2. The biggest cause of unhappiness is a selfish obsession with happiness. Don't focus on your own happiness. Focus on the happiness of others and you will be happy. (11/15/12)
3. Happiness is feeling loved by someone we love. If we are unhappy than we do not feel loved by God or we do not love God.
4. You can not be happy when you are full of hate. (7/22/11)
5. "Happiness is not a destination...it is a way of life." ~unknown (2/2/12)
6. In 2004, people who said they were conservative or very conservative were nearly twice as likely to say they were very happy as people who called themselves liberal or very liberal (44 percent versus 25 percent). Conservatives were only half as likely to say they were not too happy (9 versus 18 percent). Political conservatives were also far less likely than liberals to express maladjustment to their adult lives. For example, adults on the political right were only half as likely as those on the left to say, “at times, I think I am no good at all.” They were also less likely to say they were dissatisfied with themselves, that they were inclined to feel like a failure, or to be pessimistic about their futures. Further, a 2007 survey found that 58 percent of Republicans rated their mental health as “excellent,” versus 43 percent of political independents and just 38 percent of Democrats.
   FP: Why are political conservatives so much happier than liberals?
   Brooks: About half the “happiness gap” is explained by two demographic differences. Conservatives are far more religious than liberals, on average, and much more likely to be married. Faith and marriage both strongly improve life quality for most people.
   The other half of the gap is explained by differing worldviews. Conservatives generally look at society and see a collection of individuals. They naturally believe, therefore, that personal action is the right focus for our attention. Liberals are much stronger at the level of the collective. For many on the left, individual action is a silly, futile focus if we want to make any meaningful social change; the community or all society requires change (even by force) in order for real progress to be made.
   This worldview difference dramatically affects happiness levels. Simply put, it is easier to be successful in relying on your own actions for things that are important to you than to rely on the actions of everyone else. Conservatives feel more in control of their world than liberals do; liberals are more likely to feel like victims when others don’t behave the way they “should.”  -FrontPage, 3/6/13
7. Thesubjects of this study where ranked into three groups based on how happy theyreported they where. The death rate of the happiest third of subjects (3.6%)was less than half the death rate of the least happy third of subjects (7.3%).