27 Feb A weekend with a special type of happiness
Happiness comes in all shapes and forms…don't forget to appreciate all of them!
This weekend I've had a bit of pleasure, I'm pleased to say, but I've had much more of a different form of happiness…satisfaction and pride.
Too often too many people associate happiness just with pleasure and play, joy and fun. These are perfectly valid forms of happiness and positive emotion but so too, according to the positive psychology research and personal experience, are alternative forms of positive emotion and happiness such as satisfaction and mastery and achievement and pride.
These are the feelings we get when we complete a difficult or sometimes even an unpleasant task…which is exactly what I've done this weekend. Two tasks I've been putting off for some time now, are now complete. Neither task was particularly enjoyable, but I can honestly say that now, on completion, I'm VERY happy that I've done them and in addition to the pleasant emotions of satisfaction I'm now experiencing I've also done away with those nagging negative emotions, such as guilt, that have plagued me every time I've looked at the incomplete tasks over the last few months.
So go find happiness in pleasure and play; go and enjoy fun and fantastic play…but find happiness also in the satisfaction of a completed task or the achievement of a challenging goal; because these should be considered just as important for our overall wellbeing and the living of a really good life!