What is the number one characteristic associated with happiness?

culled from:ritualsofhealing.com

Happiness has been heavily researched in the psychological research. We know that a higher income (up to a point) is associated with more happiness than those reported in impoverished populations and married people are statistically happier than non-married people. However, the differences are slight. These and other external circumstances do not generally have a large influence on moment to moment happiness.

It turns out that the largest single predictor of happiness is not something outside of us at all. It is not circumstantial. It is not something we can “get”. It is not the job, the car, the wife, the latest iPhone or social status. It comes from the Inside-out. The largest statistically significant predictor of happiness is the internal state of presence (not to be confused with presents). Being fully engaged in what is happening now, where you are, who you are with or what you are doing NOW, no matter what that is, is the strongest predictor of “happiness”.

    “Our journey is about being more deeply involved in life and yet, less attached to it”

    ~ Ram Dass

Harvard trained psychological researcher Dr. Matt Killingsworth researched over 15,000 people ranging in education, occupation and age across 80 different countries via an iPhone app. Users received random pings throughout their day asking them to share their current mood and their current activity. What Killingsworth discovered, was that mind wandering was greatly predictive of unhappiness, regardless of activity. Full engagement with the present moment, even during seemingly unpleasant circumstances like waiting in line, was associated with positive mood. See his graph below:
Mindfulness

BE HERE NOW

Why? When our minds are wandering away from what we are doing, we disconnect, not just from others but from the vital experience of being alive. We lock ourselves in our heads, worry over something in the future, ruminate on the past or attempt to solve the unsolvable. Killingsworth also noted a strong relationship between mind wandering now and unhappiness later. However, there he found no relationship with engagement in the now (doing what you are actually doing) and unhappiness later.

Be here now

In this age of distraction, we have learned how to be anywhere but here. Many of us have set up our whole way of being based on escapism and distraction tactics. We are largely afraid to just be present, we don’t know how. This is because we’ve been trained to believe that happiness lies outside of us. Does this sound familiar? Fill in the blanks below with your favorites:

I will be happy when _____________ happens. I will be happy after I get________________________. I will only be happy if he______________________. I will feel better when I drink this______. I can relax when I make__________.

These “if __then” scenarios are lies. They are part of what Clarity author Jamie Smart calls the “Outside-In Misunderstanding”. We’ve been indoctrinated to believe that happiness exists somewhere else, outside of us, and we can only “get it” if we get__________________. We are forever trying to get somewhere else, be someone else or do something else. This misunderstanding of how life works sets us up to constantly seek something else and we miss what is actually happening now. We miss our life and we are not happy.

This Outside-In Misunderstanding is just this, a misunderstanding of how we work, a bunk program supporting the age of distraction. But we cannot de-program ourselves without learning how our minds operate. As a mindfulness based clinical psychologist, I train people how to be in the present moment. In mindfulness based psychotherapy, we meditate, learn mindfulness based tools and tactics for being present. We let go of old ways of thinking and being. The first step is clearly seeing that nature of your own mind. We do this through meditation practice and mindfulness skills education. We unlock the mental prison and laugh out loud. When you see clearly, laughter is often a side effect.

Happiness is not outside of you. It is always and only within you. May you be fully present.