Recently, I attended a talk on “How to be happy – The full life approach to well being” at my workplace. The speaker presented one Happiness equation invented by Prof Martin Seligman which I found interesting. And here goes:

H: Enduing level of Happiness
S: Set range (somewhat like a person’s characteristics eg your minimum is 3 and your maximum is 9)
C: Circumstances including age, climate, education, race, medical tests, money etc
V: Events under voluntary control

We were asked to rank ourselves using the Satisfaction with Life scale (SWLS)
Score (1- strongly disagree, 2 – disagree, 3 – slightly disagree, 4 – neutral, 5 – agree, 6 – slightly agree, 7 – strongly agree)

Q1. In most ways my life is close to my ideal. ____
Q2. The conditions of my life are excellent. ____
Q3. I am satisfied with my life.____
Q4. So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.____
Q5. If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.____

And the results as follows:
35 – 31 Extremely satisfied
26 – 30 Satisfied
21 – 25 Slightly satisfied
20 Neutral
15 – 19 Slightly dissatisfied
10 – 14 Dissatisfied
5 – 9 Extremely dissatisfied

The average score for Americans ranged from 26-28, prison immates and hospital patients 12-14. No local results were provided.

The speaker cited 3 examples of people at work.

A – wakes up every morning to loathe going to work. She sees her work as a means to bring home the dough. If she has been given a choice, she would left her work long ago. She would never ever want her children to be in her line of work in the future.

B – knows what the work she is doing now is temporary. She is constantly looking at ways to improve herself and gets noticed by senior management. She knows someday she will be due for a promotion. She views her current state as a stepping stone to greater things ahead.

C – enjoys what she is doing for a living. She talks about her work with great enthusiasm. She doesn’t mind bringing her work home late at night or gets contacted for work commitments during her holidays. She hopes one day her children will follow her footsteps and do what she is doing now.

And as all you may have guessed by now.
A is a job.
B is a career.
C is a calling.

The participants nodded their heads furiously when the examples were cited. It’s not unusual for people to find shadows of themselves in either A, B or rarely C.

The last leg of the talk explained the differences between a pleasant life, an engaged life and lastly a meaningful life. One lady provided an account of how she quit her profession in pursuit of a more meaningful life.

I wonder how our economy will suffer if all of us quit our professions to seek a “more meaningful” life – no matter what it may be. Imagine the exodus of white-collared workers who will leave their offices to teach yoga, sell cakes or set up a farm. A balance has to be striked, but how? Men shall remain in their offices while their wives seek “meaningful” lives?

Ultimately, the root cause of your happiness or lack of happiness lies in your hands. The “V” in the equation explains it all. How often have you made a wrong decision in life and yet forgive yourself because it is your own choice, really?