WHAT IS HAPPINESS WORTH?

What is happiness worth?

Start by answering the following questions:

1. On a scale of 0 -10 (0 being despair & 10 contentment), where do you feel you are at this moment?
2. Considering where you have gauged yourself, where would you like to be?
3. And what would that be worth to you?

For many of us this is a difficult question. Happiness is an emotion, a feeling. It is not like a pair of designer jeans, a new handbag, a summer vacation or the latest sports car. These all have a comparable market price, whereas with happiness you may say, “it is not tangible - so how am I to grasp a value of it?” Happiness is unique to each of us - it is an individual feeling, a sense or an emotion that ‘fits’ given the appropriate stimuli or circumstances.

One of the great truths and challenges of life is understanding what is worthwhile. Each day, we trade in the marketplace of life, giving whatever we are willing in exchange for something we want or need. For that reason it would seem important that what we receive in return is at least worth what we give. It would be devastating to find at the end of our journey that what we have exchanged our life for has not been worth the life we gave.

Consequently each of us will have a price or opportunity cost for happiness. Some will value it highly and others may choose to forgo happiness for their own reasons.

Happiness comes from within:

Frederick Matthias Alexander - founder of the Alexander Technique - said that happiness was our birth-right, and as young children it is something that we all have naturally. Watch a child playing with a toy. You may notice that she becomes totally focused on what she is doing at that present moment - not thinking of all the things she would rather be doing or feeling guilty because she is enjoying herself. The child is just being herself, experiencing a state of pure contentment, a state of visible happiness.

We all know that we should not be living our lives in a state of discontent, as this makes us feel that we have to continually try to realise a better lifestyle. However for many of us the conditioning has been going on longer than we can remember and the habits of body, mind and emotions are so much a part of our lives that it is difficult to see another practicable way of being.

As we begin to grow away from our natural happy state of mind, fear begins to take over - fear of failure, ridicule, rejection, loneliness and these fears are mirrored in our emotional state. Watch someone on their way to work, doing a job they don’t much enjoy. Their shoulders hunched and neck muscles tense. Compare this with someone in love, whose movements seem light and very different from usual habits.

Research has shown the resulting benefits of happiness. You are:

more likely to benefit your families, your communities and society at large
more likely to enjoy superior work outcomes, including greater creativity, increased productivity, higher quality of work and higher income
more likely to be more cooperative, charitable and socialise
more likely to have a stronger immune system and live longer
more likely to enjoy larger social rewards - more likely to marry, less likely to become divorced, more likely to have friends, more likely to enjoy stronger social support, more likely to enjoy richer social interactions.
more likely to be more emotionally healthy
more likely to be more active, and have greater energy and flow
more likely to exhibit greater self-control and coping abilities
less likely to show symptoms of mental illness including less depression, less paranoia

Now please take a few moments - stop - and again ask yourself these questions:

The Mangrove

What is happiness worth?