Top 10 Secrets TO HAPPINESS AND CONTENTMENT
Natural Solutions|Summer 2020
There is no true answer to this question that is simple and short. Northwest Vista College Professor and Author Don Lucas, Ph.D, shares what psychological science has revealed as being the 10 secrets to happiness.
DEBORAH K. HEISZ
Top 10 Secrets TO HAPPINESS AND CONTENTMENT
“Learn as many of these secrets as you can; and apply them to your current life’s circumstances. If you do, I promise you will have happiness to go along with your face masks and social distancing,” said Lucas, who is author of “Being: Your Happiness, Pleasure, and Contentment.”

Communal Friendships.

The greatest secret to happiness is having communal friendships. Individuals in communal friendships have no expectations about the giving and taking that goes on within these friendships. Most friendships are not communal, but instead are reciprocal with individuals expecting equal amounts of giving and taking in their friendships. Communal friendships are driven by empathy, which allows a person to experience another person’s emotions. For example, if you are having a good day and feeling happy about it and you talk with a friend who is also having a good day and feeling happy about it; with empathy, you will feel twice as happy as you did when you were by yourself.

Social Relationships.

The second secret to happiness is social relationships. Social relationships can be communal but are best defined as the reciprocal relationships in our lives: family, business partners, work colleagues, Facebook friends, acquaintances, neighbors, fellow church/synagogue/mosque worshipers, classmates, fellow sports fans… None of these social relationships is necessarily more important for happiness than any other. The importance of these social relationships is its diversity and total number. Simply put, happy people have more opportunities for social interactions than unhappy people do.

Extraversion.

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