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In the book the Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby thought that if he was rich he could get the girl he loves Daisy. But in the end he " was clutching for some last hope"(Fitzgerald 161), he didn't get Daisy. I do not agree with Gatsby and his way of being happy, I think that Gatsby was to focused on achieving this one thing that he though would make him happy that he lost meaning and happiness in his life.

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In this video the kids talk about how they would rather be a rich adult than be a child forever. They think that success is having a lot of money and that money can buy things that make you happy. For me, I do not agree with these kids because I feel that success isn't measured with the amount of money you earn or the things you have, success is about achieving whatever you want and money doesn't have to be the reward. I also think that money can buy materialistic things that make us happy for a short while but I do not think it is true happiness.

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Would You Rather Be Rich Or Happy? (A Pint-Sized Social Experiment)

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Kids say the darndest things - but sometimes they offer some serious insight. We played "Would You Rather" with kids ages 3 to 11 to see if they had anything to teach us adults. Visit aplus.com/s/readresssuccess for more. For every signature on its petition to change Merriam-Webster's definition of success, Strayer University will donate 50 cents to Dress For Success!

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This article states that no matter how something makes you happy, we drift back to where we started; like having a car we are happy in the first couple of months but soon we will grow sick of it. If we are stuck in the same routine then we won't be happy; we can never be satisfied. In my opinion if we look at the bigger picture and see how privileged we are to have a car I think we can stay happier.

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No matter how miserable you are feeling at the moment, if you look back, there have surely been events in your life that have made you happy. Maybe the time you bought your first car, or the time you received that long-desired promotion. Or the time you lost fifteen pounds and were able to get back into your favorite jeans without cutting off your circulation. When good things happen, we feel positive emotions-like excitement, relief, pride, and of course, happiness. These feelings are essential for our well-being.

But the problem is, happiness doesn't usually last. The excitement of that first car purchase wears off, the thrill of the promotion gives way to the anxiety of handling the responsibilities that came with it. Sure, you think, it's nice to be a size 8 again. But it would be really great to be a size 6...

Psychologists call this phenomenon hedonic adaptation-the idea is that no matter how good something makes us feel (or, for the record, how bad), most of the time we drift back to where we started, emotionally-speaking. One often-cited study famously showed that despite their initial euphoria, lottery winners were no happier than non-winners eighteen months later. The same tendency to return to "baseline" has been shown to occur after marriage, voluntary job changes, and promotions-the kinds of things we usually expect to change our happiness and well-being for the better in a permanent way.

Why can't we make the happiness last? Psychologists (and renown happiness experts) Kennon Sheldon and Sonja Lyubomirsky argue in a recent paper that our hedonic adaption occurs for two reasons.

When a positive change first occurs (say, you move into a great new house), there are usually lots of positive events happening as a result. You get to break in that new six-burner range, take a long bath in your first soaking tub, and appreciate the roominess of your new garage. But over time, there are fewer positive events to experience, because you get used to all the home's features, and after a while you just don't notice them anymore. With fewer positive events, and thus fewer positive emotions (excitement, pride, happiness), your newfound well-being can't be sustained.

The second reason happiness fades is that even when positive events continue-if, for instance, your fitness and healthy eating habits leave you looking great, and this results in lots of new opportunities for romance on a regular basis-the change begins to simply be seen as the "new normal." And as a result, your aspiration level shifts-you feel like you need to look even better. Nobel-prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman has referred to this process as a kind of "satisfaction treadmill." Because we continuously shift our standards upward once we've reached them, we've got to keep running in order to feel satisfied again.

But don't despair-it is possible to make happiness last, by slowing the adaptation process, or even halting it all together. Sheldon and Lyubomirsky found in a recent study that two anti-adaptation tools were effective in sustaining gains in happiness over time: variety and appreciation.

Variety is, as we all know, the spice of life. But it's also a potent weapon against adaptation, because we don't get "used to" positive events when our experiences are novel, or unexpected. When, on the other hand, a positive experience is repetitive-when you know exactly what to expect-you don't get the same kick out of it.

Positive changes that are experienced in a variety of ways are more likely to lead to lasting happiness. So you'll be happier with your new spouse if you spend time doing new things together, rather than getting stuck in a boring routine. You'll be happier at your job if you are able to tackle new tasks and challenges-if there is some day-to-day variety in what you do. You'll be happier with your soaker tub if you run out and get yourself some new bubble bath, or try lighting candles (or maybe ask someone to join you in it.)

The happiness you get from doing anything will fade if you do it the same way every day, so mix things up. Think about this before making a change because you believe it will make you happier- will you be able to experience whatever it is in a variety of ways? Because if the answer is no, don't expect the happiness to last.

Tool #2, appreciation, is in many ways the opposite of adaptation-it's going out of your way to focus on something, rather than taking it for granted or letting it fade into the background. Appreciating can mean paying attention or noticing, but it is even more powerful when you take it further-when you savor something, delighting in its qualities and relishing how it makes you feel, or when you experience , a sense of being fortunate for being in your current circumstances compared to others, or compared to where you have been in the past. When we appreciate our positive experiences, when we turn our mind's eye toward them again and again in joy and wonder, we don't just make our happiness last-we kick it up a notch, too.

Human beings spend a lot of time trying to figure out what will make them happy, but not nearly enough time trying to hang on to the happiness they already have. In a way, this is like focusing all your energy on making more money, without giving any thought to what you'll do with the money you've already earned. The key to wealth, like the key to happiness, is to not only look for new opportunities, but to make the most of the ones you've been given.
For more science-based strategies you can use to reach your goals and get happier and healthier, check out Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals and Nine Things Successful People Do Differently. Trying to figure out where you go wrong when it comes to reaching your goals? Check out the free Nine Things Diagnostics.

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No matter how miserable you are feeling at the moment, if you look back, there have surely been events in your life that have made you happy. Maybe the time you bought your first car, or the time you received that long-desired promotion.

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In this video the kids talk about how family, friends and nature make them happy. This made me think that the simple things in our lives and being grateful for those simple things is what true happiness is and when we start looking for things we don't have we will never be satisfied with what we have.

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Old people's view and connection to "Old man and the Sea

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Old people's view and connection to "Old man and the Sea

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In this article it states that old people put more value on ordinary experiences and the things that make up our daily lives because they know their time is limited. This article connects with the Old Man and the Sea because Santiago also appreciated all the little things in life and valued his house and his job event though he wasn't really accomplishing anything. Santiago and the article indicate that senior citizens feel that happiness comes from the simple things in life.

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Older adults more often find happiness in everyday events, a new study finds.

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This article argues that love is a different feeling than happiness and that love doesn't make people happy. I somewhat agree to this because in the book the Great Gatsby, Gatsby loves Daisy but he is not happy because she isn't by his side. This article and the Great Gatsby are similar because they both indicate that the feeling of love is not a contributor to happiness through Gatsby and Daisy's love and the research shown in the article.

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What does it mean to love someone? Some people describe love as a feeling, which is part of the reason it gets mixed up with happiness. But love is a lot more than a feeling, and it does not immediately equate to happiness. By reviewing what love has meant to people throughout history and across cultures, researchers offer a definition of love containing four key components:

1. The beloved. To love someone, there must be someone to love.

2. The feelings that accompany love. These can be sexy feelings-or not.

3. The thoughts that accompany love. You think about the beloved.
Being with them, how they are, and so on.

4. The actions or relations one has with the beloved. Again, these
can be sexy actions-or not.

Although these components of love differ in how they are manifest across time and place, they have all have been present in some form when people describe love.

Now: will love make you happy? To have a beloved, as well as all the thoughts, feelings, and actions that come along with love? The evidence is pretty clear that although love can make you feel great, it also brings quite a bit of misery, too-and not just when you break up. Being in love is associated with emotions of joy and happiness, but it also associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety, too. Because happiness is not just about good feelings-it's also about the absence of bad ones-the research is clear that love does not equal happiness.

Why might love bring on such a mix of positive and negative experiences? As with all things that affect how we feel, the answer lies in attention: love impacts our happiness depending upon how much attention we pay to it. Love is highly attention-seeking when there is a lot of uncertainty associated with it. Does she love me? Will he ask me to marry him? What if her friends don't like me? The negative uncertainty that comes with love is a recipe for experiencing both positive and negative emotions as a result of loving someone.

Moreover, the longer you love someone, the worse you are at knowing what they do and do not like. When people judged an array of food dishes, movies, and kitchenette designs according to how much they thought their partners would like them, the longer they had been with their partner, the worse they were at predicting their preferences; and yet, the more certain they were that they were right. People assume that the person they love has the same preferences that they did when they first met but, in fact people's preferences change. Love can make us confused about what our partners like.

Love can also make us more likely to break our promises to our beloved. Research shows that people who feel like they really love their partner are more likely to make promises to them, but that they aren't more likely to actually keep these promises. People who have good self-regulation skills-the ability to monitor and control what they do-are most likely to actually keep their promises to you, not necessarily the people who love you the most. This is another reason we might experience negative as well as positive emotions as a result of love.

So although love can be great, it also brings with it a whole host of misery-making, problems, negative uncertainty, mismatched preferences, and broken promises. If you care about your happiness, you should be realistic about the fact that love won't always make you happy. Happiness will, however, affect your success in love. Happier people are more likely to get married. And research shows that the bigger the happiness gap between spouses, the more likely it is that they will get divorced. This is most common when the woman is less happy than her husband. Rather than focusing on love as a route to happiness, perhaps it's best to focus on being happy regardless of love, and then love and strong relationships will follow.

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Sometimes love is described as if it is happiness in and of itself. Love is not happiness, although it can contribute to your happiness - and your happiness can contribute to your success in love too. This Valentine's Day, learn a bit more about what love is and think about whether it's worth having or not.

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In this article it states that married couples are happier than single people. In my opinion I think the feeling people get from their life partner is a huge contributor to happiness: being supportive and helping around the house are some things that make people happy. The feeling of loyalty and trust are huge contributor to happiness.

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What happens to your happiness and satisfaction with your life in the years following a potentially major life event such as getting married or divorced or having a child or becoming unemployed? Social scientists have been doing a lot of research on that question.
What's Wrong with Most Research on Marriage and Marital Status
More social scientists are beginning to realize what should have been obvious all along - we can't just compare, say, people who are currently married to people who are not married, at one point in time, to understand the implications of getting married. If the currently-married people differ from the other people - in happiness, for example - we cannot conclude that they are different because they are married.

People who are married and people who are not married may differ in all sorts of other ways (such as financial resources or experiences of stigma - getting stereotyped, excluded, or discriminated against), and it may be those ways, rather than marriage, that accounts for any differences in happiness.

There is another big problem, too, as I have been arguing since writing Singled Out and even before. The group of people who are currently married does not include all of the people who ever got married. Divorced and widowed people are separated out of the currently-married group. So if currently married people are happier than other people, you cannot say that if the unmarried would only get married, they would be happier, too. The divorced and widowed people did get married. If you want to understand the implications of getting married, their experiences have to be included.

The real kicker is that even when marriage is given the utterly unfair and methodologically indefensible advantage of a design in which only the currently married are compared to others, there is still very little difference in happiness, and sometimes the people who did get married and then divorced (or were widowed) are less happy than those who stayed single. The results from the nationally representative sample that I described in Singled Out, for example, were (on a 1 to 4 scale, with 4 indicated the greatest happiness): 3.3, currently married; 3.2, always-single; 2.9, divorced; 2.9, widowed.
Better Ways to Study the Implications of Marital Status for Happiness, Health, and Everything Else
If you really wanted to know, using the scientific gold standard, whether marrying makes people happier, you would have to randomly assign people to get married or stay single and see what happens. Of course, it is not possible to do that.

The next best thing is to study the same people over the course of their adult lives, and see how their happiness or satisfaction with life changes as they experience various life events. If you want to know the implications of getting married (or, say, getting divorced) for people's happiness, then start asking them about their happiness or satisfaction before the event ever happened, and continue asking them (maybe once a year, though more often might be even better) how they feel long after the event occurred.

In the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a group of four authors published a statistical analysis and summary (a meta-analysis) of 18 such studies of people who got married and 8 of people who got divorced.

For one of the events, they found that people (on the average) felt a little worse just after the event occurred, then, over time, they reported feeling better and better every time they were asked.

For the other event, people may have felt a bit better right after the event than they had before, though it depended on the particular question you asked. Then, over time, they either felt no differently, or they reported feeling even worse. (Again, the particular question matters, though all of the questions have something to do with happiness or life satisfaction or satisfaction with a partner.)

So which of the results describes the implications of getting married and which describes the implications of getting divorced?

It was the people who got divorced who felt worse at first, but then felt better and better over time. The people who used to be single and then got married (well, some of the people who used to be single and then got married - more on that in a moment) felt either a little bit better at first (or their feelings/appraisals did not change or they got a bit worse), and then, over time, their feelings/appraisals either stayed about the same or got worse of time. (If you can access the paper, the relevant graphs are Figures 3 and 4.)

The authors realize that you could look at those timelines of well-being and suggest that: (1) getting divorced makes you happier over time; and (2) getting married does not make you happier and may even make you less happy.

They don't like those interpretations. Taking the marriage findings first, they suggest that people were already becoming happier than usual before they married, in anticipation of the wedding. So when married people start reporting lower satisfaction after the marriage than they did before, they are just going back to the level of satisfaction they felt before a wedding was in the picture.

I don't object to that interpretation. It is entirely possible. As the authors note, you would need to study satisfaction for enough years before the wedding to be more certain that this explanation is a good one.

For divorce, the thinking is similar. Levels of happiness were probably already heading down for people headed to divorce, and so getting divorced only makes people happier relative to how increasingly miserable they were feeling, year after year, when they were married. Again, I buy that as plausible, and related research suggests as much.
The 18 Long-Tem Studies of the Implications of Marrying: Some Specifics
The 18 key studies of the implications of marrying for well-being were all prospective studies. That means that people were asked about their happiness or satisfaction starting before they got married and continuing for a while afterwards. On the average, people started reporting their satisfaction about 4 months before they married, and continued doing so repeatedly. The average number of times they reported their satisfaction was about 5. Some of the research has been ongoing for more than a decade.

In at least 11 of the 18 studies, the people in the marriage group included only those who got married and stayed married all through the study. This is important. The cumulative results of the 18 studies don't really tell us about the implications of getting married; instead, they tell us about the implications mostly only for those who get married and stay married. For those who marry and then divorce or become widowed, the implications may be very different.

The authors of the 18 studies asked about well-being in at least one of three different ways:

Happiness. I'm calling this happiness, but the authors of the meta-analysis use the term "affective well-being." The participants in the studies were sometimes asked about happiness and sometimes asked about unpleasant feelings such as a depressed mood (which is different from clinical depression).

Life satisfaction. Participants are asked how satisfied they are with their lives. The authors called this "cognitive well-being."

Relationship satisfaction. Participants are asked how satisfied they are with their relationship with their partner.

The first question the authors of the meta-analysis answered was: How did the participants' happiness or satisfaction change from just before they got married to just after? (Remember, "just before" was, on the average, 4 months before the wedding. Just after was the first time they were asked after the wedding.) The second question was: How did happiness or satisfaction change over time after the wedding?

Here's what they found:

For happiness, there was no difference in happiness from just before the wedding until just after. Over time, on the average, happiness did not change. Participants did not get either happier or less happy as the years of their marriage marched on.

Satisfaction with life did increase from just before the wedding to just after. But then it decreased continually over time.

Compared to life satisfaction, relationship satisfaction decreased from just before the wedding to just after. As time went on, relationship satisfaction continued to decrease at about the same rate as overall life satisfaction.

Here's what did not happen: Except for that initial short-lived honeymoon effect for life satisfaction, getting married did not result in getting happier or more satisfied. In fact, for life satisfaction and relationship satisfaction, the trajectories over time headed in the less satisfied direction.

What is really remarkable about the combined findings of the 18 studies is that the designs were biased in favor of making marriage look good. At least 11 of the studies included only those people who got married and stayed married.

There was one sentence in the results section of the meta-analysis about how the results were different for those studies which included people who had separated, rather than tossing them out of the marriage group: "These samples did not differ in the initial reaction; however, the rate of adaptation was significantly less negative in samples without any separations."

Translation: Negative adaptation means that people were getting less satisfied over time. If you take out the people who got separated and just look at the people who got married and stayed married, then the decrease in happiness is not as striking. That's another way of saying what I've been saying all along: If you just look at the people who got married and stayed married, you are skimming off the top. You cannot generalize from just those people to offer blanket advice such as, Get married and you will be get happier (as Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones, actually did in the February/March 2013 issue of the AARP Magazine). Even the skimmed people did not get happier and stay happier.
After 18 Failures to Show that Getting Married Increases Happiness, They Are Still Insisting that It Does
Too many social scientists simply are not going to give up on the claim that getting married makes you happier. Harvard Magazine recently reported that Dan Gilbert, Harvard professor and bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness, delighted an audience by asking them " how many believed getting married led to happiness " and then proclaiming "you're right!" to the people who raised their hands.

There were no references in the magazine, but maybe Gilbert was referring to the latest attempt to salvage the myth of marital bliss. It was a study of people's life satisfaction over time, similar to the ones I described above. (It probably was one of the 18 studies, though the specific studies were not listed in the article.)

In the same type of analyses conducted for the 18 studies, participants' reports of their life satisfaction were tracked starting before they married and continuing for years afterwards. Only those who got married and stayed married throughout the study were included in the analyses.

The results were the same as for the 18 studies. Participants reported an increase in life satisfaction around the year of the wedding (compared to before the wedding), but, as the authors noted, "this effect was short-lived." Over time, the participants went back to feeling as satisfied or as unsatisfied as they were with their lives before they got married.

So how did the authors find a way to make getting married look like a boon to happiness? First, they looked at normative changes in life satisfaction over the course of the adult years. Setting aside considerations of marital status, the study showed (as have other studies) that life satisfaction decreases over time. Then they looked specifically at the people who stayed single, and found that their life satisfaction showed some decrease over time.

(Some specifics: At the time of the marriage, those who got married and stayed married reported life satisfaction that was a half of one point, on a 7-point scale, higher than the matched single people. In the years afterwards, those who married and stayed married averaged .28 of one point on a 7-point scale greater life satisfaction than those who stayed single. About the "matching": For each person who got married and stayed married, the authors tried to find a single person who was as similar as possible in age, sex, education and income. They didn't say when they assessed income. The matching was not totally successful. For example, the single people, on the average, were four years older than those who got married and stayed married.)

Here's what the authors said about their results: "...although our previous analyses showed that people were no more happier after marriage than before marriage, these results suggest that married people are indeed happier than they would have been if they did not get married."

That interpretation was repeated in the press. The study may also be the basis for claims by people such as Dan Gilbert that getting married makes you happier.
Do You See What Is Wrong with the Study and the Claims about the Results? If So, You Are Way Ahead of Most Journalists, Professors, and Bestselling Authors
I think there are at least two major problems with the claims made about what this study suggests. The authors of the study acknowledge only one of them. There are also a number of alternative interpretations that go unmentioned.

See if you can figure out the flaws in the study and in the claims made about the results. I'll tell you what I think they are in a future post. [ UPDATE. Here it is: Every time you hear that getting married will make you happier, read this.]

I'm guessing that many of you can identify problems and generate alternative interpretations, even though you may have no training in research methods. If you can, you are doing better than the authors of the study, the reviewers and editors who critiqued the study before it was published, the journalists who wrote about it, and highly successful people such as Harvard professor Dan Gilbert and "happiness expert" Dan Buettner.

[ Note: I published what I think are my most powerful arguments for what's wrong with the claims about how marriage transforms miserable single people into blissfully happy couples in Marriage vs. Single Life: How Science and the Media Got It So Wrong.]

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Marriage and Happiness: 18 Long-Term Studies

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In 18 studies, people reported their happiness or satisfaction starting before they got married and continuing for years afterwards. Getting married did not change people's happiness. Around the time of the wedding, people who got married and stayed married reported an increase in life satisfaction, but it did not last.

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In this article it states that video games engage people more effectively and more productively than any other thing and makes people happy. In my opinion video games is a contributor to happiness. I also think that material things make you happy for a short amount of time and it's not genuine happiness.

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This is a guest post from Greg Toppo, author of the book The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter. He is USA Today's national education reporter.
Video games engage us more effectively and more productively than almost any other activity we have come up with. This is why video games make us genuinely happy.

The first question that always comes up when we talk about this research is What kind of game?

Players get different benefits from different games. World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG (it's often shortened simply to MMO), offers a level of immersion, an epic sense of accomplishment, and a sense of fellowship with other players that a simple iPhone game like Candy Crush can't match.

But even simple games are thoughtfully and cleverly designed, sucking players into what sociologist Natasha Dow Schüll calls the "machine zone," a mental state where nothing else matters but a player's ability to keep playing. Schüll has spent years studying Las Vegas slot machine players. She found that the most obsessive players don't actually play to win. They're "time-on-device" players who "play to win to play." Sound like any Candy Crush devotees you know?

Actually, video game advocates would take exception to the slot machine comparison, and with good reason. Slots don't require much in the way of ability, and they certainly don't reward failure in the same open-hearted way that a video game does.

In fact, video games stand apart, not just from slot machines but from nearly every endeavor in our lives, in this way: we're disappointed if mastering one is too easy. Imagine being disappointed to find that operating a snowmobile, filing your taxes, or mastering calculus was easier than you'd thought.

As for the difference between World of Warcraft and Candy Crush, players get the problem-solving benefits with either one, as well as a generous dose of something game theorists call "flow" or "optimal experience." First identified in the 1980s by Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "chick-CENT-mee-hi"), it's a mental state in which a person's abilities match the task at hand so perfectly that the work becomes invisible.

Situated midway between boredom and anxiety (skills without challenge equal boredom, while challenge without skills equals anxiety), flow emerged from Csikszentmihalyi's work studying, among others, painters who became so consumed with their work that they ignored the need for food, drink, or sleep. "The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile," he wrote. "Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen." It's also, he found, a key element to happiness.

Although most Americans enjoy a fair measure of free time and ample access to leisure activities, Csikszentmihalyi found, they don't often experience flow. Watching television, which we do for about thirty-four hours a week, rarely leads to flow. Csikszentmihalyi found that people actually achieve the flow state - "deep concentration, high and balanced challenges and skills, a sense of control and satisfaction" - about four times as often on the job as when they are watching television.

Video games, from the simplest to the most complex are, in a way, perfect flow machines.

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Video games provide a genuine happiness that we find very few other ways

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This is a guest post from Greg Toppo, author of the book The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter. He is USA Today's national education reporter.Video games engage us more effectively and more productively than almost...

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In this article, scientists had stated that nature plays an important role in maintaining positive health. In my opinion nature makes me happy, the feeling of being outside gives me time to think about my life. Walking around the forest and being alone makes me happy and it's a big attribute to my happy.

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In today's age of high technology, research shows that our hunger for the natural world still endures. In fact, our connections with nature could just be the best medicine for people of all ages-improving our health, happiness, and well-being. Those same connections could also heal the planet.

Few would disagree that our natural and cognitive worlds have grown disconnected. Most of us, particularly children, spend far less time in nature today than in recent decades. There are no required classes in nature connectedness in our schools, nor is nature a well-utilized tool for teaching kids to critically think about the world around them. New research, however, suggests our relationship with nature may be deeply linked to our happiness.

We don't have to look far into history to know that humans evolved in natural settings and were deeply connected to their ecological environments. In the 18 th century, poet and writer, Samuel Johnson, wisely stated, "Deviation from nature is deviation from happiness." Could those natural settings not only become an avenue by which we find happiness in the 21 st century, but also provide new psychological insights that help motivate generations toward environmental sustainability?

Several particularly interesting studies were published recently in Environment and Behavior by John Zelenski and Elizabeth Nisbet. Not surprisingly, the studies found that our emotional connections with nature are predictive of our attitudes and the choices we make about living sustainable lifestyles. But in addition, the study also found a unique connection between nature and happiness itself.

The Link between Nature and Happiness

Zelenski and Nisbet conducted two studies with one question in mind: Is the link between nature and happiness independent from the other things that make us feel emotionally connected to life, like family, country, culture, music, and friends?

In the first study, they measured people's feelings of connectedness across many spheres, including nature. They called the concept of how we emotionally connect to our natural world nature relatedness. Using a Likert-type scale, participants rated their nature relatedness by their level of agreement or disagreement with statements like "My relationship to nature is an important part of who I am," and "I take notice of wildlife wherever I am."

Other scales and inventories were used to rate people's subjective happiness across these same areas. The result? Among the various happiness scales, the relationship between nature and happiness was highly significant.

One of the primary goals of the study "was to determine whether the association between nature relatedness and happiness is due to a general sense of connectedness or a more specific link with nature." In other words, the researchers wanted to know if nature stood out from other things that made us feel connected to life and gave us a sense of happiness.

The results of their research suggest that "nature relatedness has a distinct happiness benefit" beyond the more generalized benefit of feeling connected to family, friends, and home. Our connection to nature also correlated with most measures of human well-being, indicating it may play an extremely important role in maintaining positive mental health.

To further understand and expand the findings of the first study, Zelenski and Nisbet conducted a 2 nd study. In this study they used well-validated assessments to more deeply explore various connections to happiness, particularly those of an interpersonal quality, including attachment, interdependence, and belongingness. Not only did they hope to replicate the findings from Study 1, but they also wanted to see if nature relatedness could actually predict happiness.

Important Findings on Nature Relatedness

While not every correlation between nature and happiness could be duplicated in the second study, the general pattern of findings and ensuing comparison to past studies led researchers to important conclusions, including:

Our emotional connectedness to the natural world is distinct from other psychological connections in our lives.

Nature relatedness often predicts happiness regardless of other psychological factors.

Psychological connections with nature have the capacity to facilitate sustainable attitudes, and may be an important tool in preserving our environment.

Ecopsychology and the Future of Planet Earth

While these studies provide insightful data on the relationship of nature and happiness, they build on many previous studies that link our health and well-being to the natural world. In fact, a whole new field of ecopsychology has emerged, combining the efforts of ecologists, psychologists, spiritualists, philosophers, and others. The International Community for Ecopsychology says, "Ecopsychology explores the synergistic relation between personal health and well-being and the health and well-being of our home, the Earth."

Many experts have sounded the alarm about our disconnection from the natural world, from the Industrial Revolution onward. But the Digital Age evokes additional concerns.

Richard Louv, in his award winning book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, linked the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation to troubling childhood trends, including the rise of obesity and depression.

A 2005 study by the American Institutes for Research found that kids who learn in outdoor classrooms improve their science scores by 27 percent.

Not only have experts found that outdoor education is critical for child development, it is also important for the future of the planet. Why? Because when we feel connected to nature, we are more likely to live sustainable lifestyles. We are also more likely to support environmental causes that educate and engage others with the natural world.

How should studies like these affect our actions in the world? While I consider myself deeply connected to nature already, these studies motivated me to take a walk in my neighborhood with new eyes. Not only did I engage differently with the many blossoming trees, but I discovered 15 Great Blue Heron nests in a tree within a block of my home. I had been walking by them for days, but had never looked up! The thrill of seeing each nest topped with a large heron definitely increased my happiness! It showed me that there is much more to learn and many more ways to engage with the many living organisms around us.

Let's get our children and teenagers out in the natural world and engage them with its beauty and vibrant spirit. In the end, it is their and our relationships with nature that will determine our futures.

How would you describe your own connection with nature? Your children's? Do those relationships with the natural world bring happiness to your lives?

References

American Institutes for Research (AIR) (2005). Effects of Outdoor Education Programs for Children in California. Palo Alto, CA.

Louv, R. (2008). Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Algonquin Books.

Zelenski, J. M., & Nisbet, E. K. (2014). Happiness and Feeling Connected The Distinct Role of Nature Relatedness. Environment and Behavior, 46(1), 3-23.

Author

Marilyn Price-Mitchell, PhD, is a developmental psychologist working at the intersection of youth development, leadership, education, and civic engagement.Subscribe to Updates at Roots of Action to receive email notices of Marilyn's articles.

©2014 Marilyn Price-Mitchell. All rights reserved. Please contact for permission to reprint.

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In today's age of high technology, research shows that our hunger for the natural world still endures. In fact, our connections with nature could just be the best medicine for people of all ages-improving our health, happiness, and well-being. Those same connections could also heal the planet.

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Having friends is a big attribute to happiness, the company of others is what makes some people happy. For me, friends is an attribute to my happiness, but it isn't important to me. I've always found a way to be happy with or without people.

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In my opinion this image is indicating that happiness is about embracing who you are and having a positive outlook in life.

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In this article, it has been proven by scientists that money can buy happiness. In the article it states that money buys "free time" for people. In my opinion money contributes to happiness, but I do not think it's essential to be happy. In my opinion getting material things make people happy for a short while. Money is not true happiness but it can buy happiness for a short while.

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They say money can't buy happiness, but science begs to differ.

An international research team has demonstrated that you really can make yourself happier by paying other people to do your time-consuming chores.

It doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor, the new study suggests. If you feel pressed for time, your life satisfaction can be improved by trading money for minutes that you can use as you wish.

The researchers, led by Ashley Whillans, a new professor at the Harvard Business School, began with survey data from nearly 4,500 people from the United States, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands. Survey-takers were asked whether they paid other people to do "unenjoyable daily tasks" in order to "increase their free time."

In 28% of cases, the answer was yes. These folks spent an average of $147.95 per month to buy themselves extra time.

What they lost in currency, they made up for in happiness. Whillans and her colleagues found that the people who traded money for time were more satisfied with life than their counterparts who didn't. They also were less likely to say they felt "time stress," a condition that was linked with lower levels of life satisfaction.

Just in case their original question was too narrow, the researchers conducted a second survey that asked more than 1,800 Americans whether they spent money to buy themselves "more free time."

This time, half of the survey-takers answered yes. These folks spent between $80 and $99 per month, on average, so that others would handle chores like cooking, shopping and "household maintenance."

As before, the people who bought themselves time were more satisfied with life than those who didn't. And as before, the people who didn't employ this strategy were generally less satisfied with life because their lack of free time was stressing them out.

These findings held up even after the researchers took into account the amount of money survey-takers spent on groceries - a variable used as a proxy for discretionary income.

"People across the income spectrum benefited from buying time," the researchers wrote.

Finally, Whillans and her colleagues conducted a more direct test with the help of 60 lucky working adults in Vancouver.

For two consecutive weekends, the researchers gave these volunteers $40 to spend. In one of the weeks, the volunteers were asked to spend the money on a material purchase. In the other week, they were asked to invest their windfall on something that would save them time. The researchers checked in with the volunteers each weekend to see how they felt after they had spent the money.

As expected, the volunteers reported less time-related stress in the week when they made a time-saving purchase than in the week when they bought a material good.

They also had more positive feelings (like joy and enthusiasm) and fewer negative feelings (such as anger, fear and nervousness) in the week when they bought themselves time.

"Making a time-saving purchase caused improvements in daily mood," the researchers wrote. "Improvements in daily mood should promote greater life satisfaction."

In other words, they had found a way to buy happiness.

The study was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Science proves it: Money really can buy happiness

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They say money can't buy happiness, but science begs to differ. An international research team has demonstrated that you really can make yourself happier by paying other people to do your time-consuming chores. It doesn't matter whether you're rich or poor, the new study suggests.

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For me being happy is being with the people I love and loving my life and being happy in it. The meaning of being happy is all the little things in life like having a house to live in, having food to eat, and having a loving family. In my opinion one attain's true happiness when one stop's looking at what they don't have and instead looks at what they have that makes them happy.