Happiness

In the 1950's, an experiment took place that counted how many times people laughed each day.

The average result was 40 times.

A similar experiment was recently conducted and the results were astounding.

They showed that, average, we now laugh about 8 times per day.

The results of this survey prove that we are just not having as much fun as we used to.

The CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, was once asked the following question:

When were you most happiest in your life?

Schmidt's answer was very simple. He said 'tomorrow'.

Some of us live with the belief that the happiest days of our lives have passed. As a result of this, we lose our joy for living and often spend time reflecting on the past.

Schmidt's answer is one of hope and anticipation. He believes that his happiest time has not passed. Similarly, it is not years away. It is, quite simply, around the corner.

We live in an age of statistics and, more importantly, we are governed by governments who use statistics to make decisions.

The problem has often been that these statistics do not really reflect how we feel.

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy, however, is trying to change this. He wants to make the happiness of the French people one of the statistics that he uses when making decisions.

More importantly, he wants to make it a measurement of economic growth. Nicolas believes that there is a great contradiction in France at the moment because the statistics show that the economy, and life in general, are improving, but in reality for French people, life seems to be much harder than it was previously.

On December 13 2006, Richard Carlson, the best-selling author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (and its all Small Stuff) passed away. He was only 45.

Richard’s gift was his ability to take the time-tested ideas from many different cultures and to express them in simple and easy terms, so that everyone could apply them.

One of his most powerful mantras was ‘you can be happy no matter what’.

The secret behind success, for many people is to be happy. When you are happy, you are automatically more motivated, more focused and obstacles that would otherwise seem like mountains become easy to solve.

There is an illogical law of life that says that the more you have, the more you need to be happy.

Often in life, you will come accross people who have everything and still are unhappy.

They have created a situation in which all that they have is never enough.

Even if they receive more than they expect, it is still not enough for them!

The Ancient Greeks have taught us that the object of life is to be happy.

One of the hardest questions to ask is, 'Are you Happy?'

This question has the power to bring people to tears as they realise that all that they have worked for has not brought them happiness.

The truth is that we have been conditioned to believe that certain things will bring us happy.

We are taught that having money will make us happy. We are told that being in a relationship will make us happy. We assume that having a job will make us happy.

However, many of us have these and they simply do not guarantee happiness.

The Royal Family of Great Britain live the life that many of us dream to live. They have wealth, power and prestige.

Recently, however, Historians studied the family tree and found that King Edward the Fifth was actually an illegitimate son.

Due to this, all future monarchs are not the correct heirs to the throne.