How happy are you?

I am on a maternity leave, away from the regular classes I teach, but oh am I ever busy?! True, I am busy but quite happy. Are you happy? What does bring you happiness? Let’s take a deep breath and reflect on that, shall we?

The concept of happiness has attracted a great number of writers, philosophers and great thinkers for over centuries. There seem to be some connection between happiness and satisfaction. But happiness is one of those concepts that I believe quite relative. What can make me happy may provide you with other emotions. The opposite can of course be true as well.

There are some ties between my happiness and my ability to associate with people. Creating and maintaining connections appears to me as a good way to pave my way to happiness. As a human being, we are social beings. We often like to feel that we are not by ourselves. Like many of us, I enjoy to connect to others. I am happy to be able to connect with others both directly and indirectly, in person, by phone or the net. I am continuing to work on my skills to improve my abilities to do that, as it is not always easy to deepen and keep these friendships.

As a mom of three, I came to realize that one good way to stabilize the level of happiness in our household is to work on friendships especially with other families who have children of the same age as ours. They get to socialize, as much as we do. It is good for everyone and no one feels being left out. However, I cannot afford to just rely on such friendships; far from saying that they limit me I am only indicating that the variety of friends can help to meet my other interests. I do need to address those as well so that I can better reach a satisfactory level of happiness. It is not really the number that matters to me, but the variety.

How does it work out for you? How do you rate your level of happiness?