A friend shared a post last night that inspired today’s blog.
It’s the motivational tale about a school teacher who conducts a balloon experiment with students, to teach them an illustrative lesson about happiness.
Search it and you’ll find various versions of the story, some more embellished than others, but this is the gist of it:
A wise teacher once brought balloons to school, told her pupils to blow them up and write their name on one. After the children tossed their balloons into the hall, the teacher moved through the hall mixing them all up. The kids were given five minutes to find the balloon with their name on it, but though they searched frantically, no one found their own balloon.
Then the teacher told them to take the balloon closest to them and give it to the person whose name was on it. In less than two minutes, everyone was holding their own balloon.
The teacher said to the children “These balloons are like happiness. We won’t find it when we’re only searching for our own. But if we care about someone else’s happiness … it will ultimately help us find our own”.
It’s a simple but quite lovely story.
Snopes (a great fact-checking site, especially for stuff shared on social media) says it was a much-shared story in 2020 – when we were probably all looking for something positive in the midst of COVID.
But aside of that, it’s not clear where the story comes from.
So this got me thinking.
What is happiness?
Do a quick search and you’ll be inundated with results (I got 5,850,000,000!)
You’ll find things such as the four pillars…, five keys…, seven tips… etc.
Wikipedia defines it as: Happiness is a complex and multifaceted emotion that encompasses a range of positive feelings, from contentment to intense joy.
Okay I get that.
In her 2007 book The How of Happiness, positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky describes it as “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile”.
That’s a lot.
I think (and it’s just my opinion) that the explanation by Dr Russ Harris in his book The Happiness Trap, is slightly better.
He says happiness has two very different meanings.
1. A sense of pleasure, gladness or gratification.
2. A rich, full and meaningful life.
While this sounds very similar to what Lyubomirsky writes, it’s the fact he sees them as two separate aspects of happiness.
Not that you have to have everything, everywhere, all at once!
For example it’s easy to feel that instant joy or pleasure when you see something beautiful, get a hug, taste something delicious… etc.
There are many things that do this for me…
My husband holding my hand…
Being in nature…
Taking time to just sit and be (practising mindfulness)…
Sunset, sunrise, beautiful views…
Laughter or getting a smile from a stranger…
Random acts of kindness…
The first (and every!) taste of stone fruits in summer…
The smell of vanilla…
Candles…
I could go on and on and on…
Of course, most of these things are temporary, we don’t tend to have them 24/7.
But it’s important to notice them when they do happen.
And it’s worth taking the time to think about what gives you this sense of happiness, and seeing if you can bring more of that into your life.
Also finding out what makes other people you care about happy… and sharing these moments.
The second part of this… a rich, full and meaningful life is perhaps harder to put your finger on.
But I think for me it encompasses practising what I preach…
Being present, noticing what’s around me…
Kindness and empathy to others…
Appreciating the good and positive things in my life… (a loving relationship, generally good health, freedoms, access to clean drinking water… )
Trying to do the right things by the environment/planet…
Inevitably though, we will all come face-to-face with pain, a crisis, disappointment and failure at different points in our lives.
So appreciating what we have (those aspects that make our lives rich and meaningful)…
And noticing those moments of joy and pleasure…
Both are important, to help us balance things out overall.
It’s not always easy.
Life is complex, frustrating and hard (at the best of times!)
But while we have it, as much as we can, let’s notice what makes us happy…
However you define it…
However big or small…
And, as in the balloon story above, share these moments with others when and where we can.
Ann 🙏