Is Meanful Joy - Well Being - Happiness - Life Satisfaction Under Our Control?

In 1996, University of Minnesota researcher David Lykken published a paper looking at the role of genes in determining happiness. Lykken gathered information on 4,000 sets of twins born in Minnesota from 1936 through 1955. After comparing happiness data on identical vs. fraternal twins, he came to the conclusion that about 50% of happiness comes from our genes. For lack of a better name, we call this your Temperament. You may have sunny, easygoing Temperament; dealing well with stress; or feeling low levels of anxiety and depression. So you can thank your ancestors—in part—for how happy you are. Half of human happiness is genetically determined.

Another 10 percent comes from your life circumstances, like how happy you are with where you live. Things like winning the lottery or spraining our ankle both influence our happiness, but typically over a short time period. Humans are very adaptable and so major boosts or dips in our happiness are generally short lived. People quickly adapt to changes, swapping winters for Southwest warmth, but this will not lead to a lasting boost in happiness.

According to longtime happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California-Riverside. What can give us a lasting boost is how we think and behave, she says: About 40 percent of our happiness is under our conscious control.

The large influence of our Temperament made David Lykken proposed the idea that each of us has a happiness set point much like our body weight. No matter what happens in our life, we tend to return in short order to our set range. This is further shown by a study of lottery winners done in 1978 found, for instance, that they did not wind up significantly happier than a control group.

Even people who lose the use of their limbs to a devastating accident tend to bounce back, though perhaps not all the way to their base line. One study found that a week after the accident, the injured were severely angry and anxious, but after eight weeks the base line was approaching the same level as before the accident.

The leading American psychologist Professor Edward Diener from the University of Illinois, says that "happiness was their strongest emotion." "Everyone is surprised by how happy paraplegics can be," The reason is that they are not paraplegic full time. They do other things. They enjoy their meals, their friends. They read the news. It has to do with the allocation of attention.

In his extensive work on adaptation, Edward Diener has found two life events that seem to knock people lastingly below their happiness set point: loss of a spouse and loss of a job. It takes five to eight years for a widow to regain her previous sense of well-being. Similarly, the effects of a job loss linger long after the individual has returned to the work force.

What is Meaningful Joy?

Meaningful Joy involves three items:

1. Indentify what makes you happy
2. Determine your passion
3. Know in what areas you are good

Where these three areas overlap - that is Meaningful Joy

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The happiness techniques presented are the same as used in the Just Wait Teen™ positive youth development program. The Just Wait Teen™ program is life enhancing and is not a rehabilitation program, or is not a drug education program.

The Just Wait Foundation is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit corporation to prevent drug, alcohol, and tobacco problems among teenagers. The foundation provides one-year scholarships (two semesters) or $1000 award to all teens that complete the four (4) year Just Wait Teen™ positive youth development program and graduate from high school - alcohol, tobacco, and drug free.