Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe | LOVE IN BLOOM BLOG

Although happiness and life satisfaction are relatively new areas of psychology studies. A current research suggests that there is more to being happy in life than external objects like cars, luxury homes, and all the must-have gadgets money can buy. The results agree with the nine requisites that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, eighteenth century playwright wrote of.

First was health, in order to make work a pleasure and then came wealth to support one’s needs. Other factors on his list included strength to deal with difficulty, grace to confess and abandon sin, patience, charity, love and hope. What does it take for you to feel that things are going well and that you are flouring? How happy are you? Answer the questions in this fun, short quiz to discover your level of happiness and how contentment you are with your life.

1. How satisfied are you with your personal relationships (that is, with family, friends, and spouse or significant other)? A. Very satisfied with my personal relationships. B. I am neither satisfied nor dissatisfied but feel fortunate to have them. C. I am dissatisfied.

2. If you could change your life in any way you wanted, how much of it would you change? A. I am happy with my life and the choices I’ve made, B. I would change several things if I saw that certain areas would work better once I’d made improvements. C. I would change a lot; nothing in my life seems to be working.

3. Thinking about the level of stress in your life, how would you rate the level of stress you feel? A. Low; not much stresses me out. B. Medium; the stressors in my life are not constant but ebb and flow. C. High; most of the time it seems tha my life is driven by high drama and unrelenting stress.

4. Comparing your life to that of most other people, how would you describe yours? A. I am extremely fortunate. B. I am somewhat fortunate. C. My life is the pits.

5. How much would you change your physical appearance if you had no monetary or other restrictions? A. Nothing: I am content with the way I look. B. A little nip here and a tuck there could make a vast improvement. C. I’d change my whole appearance, get the works.

6. How happy or satisfied are you in your choice of job or career? A. I am extremely satisfied with my choice for my life’s work. B. I am somewhat satisfied, but I might be tempted to switch jobs in the future. C. I hate my job, and it’s a drag having to show up for work every day.

7. When you think about all the various aspects of your life, how would you rate your satisfaction with your life in general? A. I am highly satisfied with my life. B. I am moderately satisfied with my life but planning to make a few small changes to improve it. C. I am totally dissatisfied with my life; it sucks.

8. Rate how difficult or easy it is for you to achieve personal goals. A. I frequently set goals, stay focused and finish what I start: My goals are usually easy to reach. B. I sometimes set goals and although many are challenging I strive to attain them. C. I resist setting goals since I never seem to attain them.

9. Comparing your life to that of most other people, in general how do you feel about yours? A. I feel extremely fortunate. B. I feel somewhat fortunate. C. I feel dissatisfied with my life and can’t understand why nothing ever seems to go my way.

10. Imagine your ideal life. How close do you feel you are having your ideal? A. I am living life to the fullest and enjoying every minute of it, so I’d say that I’m close to having the perfect life. B. I’m still tweaking with areas of my life. Since there’s always room for improvement, I’d say I am somewhat close to having my ideal life. C. My life at present is not close at all to what I’d like my ideal life to be.

Reasons to learn how to take the positive path to happiness

Becoming an optimist sees the miraculous and the extraordinary existing alongside the ordinary in their daily life and is frequently pushing themselves outside the boundaries of their comfort zones in order to have personal growth, spiritual renewal, and happiness.

If you want to find happiness and add years to your life choose positive thoughts over negative ones, you are more likely to develop an optimistic outlook on life. According to happiness researchers such as Martin E.P. Seligmann, director of the Positive psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania and Barbara Fredrickson, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, positive people generally have higher levels of optimism and life satisfaction and live longer.

In a BBC News report, Dr. Selligman was quoted as saying that he believed that “we” have compelling evidence that optimists and pessimists will differ markedly in how long they live and Dr. Fredrickson has counseled that changing your mind-set can change your body chemistry. She has stated that positive feelings literally can open the heart and mind. And there’s more good news even if you aren’t normally a happy person, thinking happy thoughts is a skill that can be learned.

Anyone can learn to the art of being an optimist and choosing to think positive thoughts. You can start seeing the proverbial glass half full rather than half empty. Here are a couple of ways to start changing how you react and think. The next time you are in line at the post office and someone cuts in front of you or says something rude, resist the urge to respond with anger, which can clamp down your blood vessels and increase your blood pressure.

This suggestion might up set you but it’s worth it to experience peace of mind. Instead return rudeness with kindness and respect. Keep that positive vibe going through your intentions and actions in whatever you do. The more frequently you choose to be happy, the more your effort will be strengthened. So don’t fret; be happy and live longer.

Now’s the time to love the life you live and it’s time to go from blah to blissful. So c’mon, get happy!

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe~

Sometimes a grandmother’s common sense can teach their grandchildren that life’s simple pleasures can bring them the most happiness, and that they cannot buy it with money. Like going on walks and showing them the beauty in nature.

I preferred my grandmothers homemade toys, which she created with her own hands, over the expensive toys my parents bought me. From the age of five, I can remember her writing letters to me. She introduced me to world-famous classics and the library. By the time I was six I was able to read classics like Oliver Twist and Great Expectations because my dad had read them to me over and over. I’m not sure if I read them or if I memorised them.

My grandmother lived far away and would come to visit us and when she arrived I was glade to see her and sad when she had to leave. She felt the same. I missed her right away. But then, one week after she left, a letter would arrive.

Dear Granddaughter, I miss you a lot and remember absence makes hearts grow fonder? Write to me when you feel low or bored. So I started writing to her and I poured out all my problems into those letters. One of my favorite letters that I wrote to her was when I was in second grade and I explained to her that an older girl was being mean to me at school and called me a brat.

I wrote to my grandma: Grandma, I’m being treated unkindly at school and I feel hurt. She wrote back: Dear Granddaughter, Just follow my instructions when the older mean girl says something that is hurtful to you. Tell her that you are hard of hearing and ask her to repeat what she said again and again. She will repeat it. Keep telling her that you can’t hear her, and she will get fed up and leave you alone. I followed grandma’s advice and it worked.

Then in my first year of high school we were having our annual health fitness week. I was good at sports but not at rope climbing and gymnastics. All my class mates were stronger in the upper parts of their bodies than me. I couldn’t complete rope climbing or any of the gymnastic part of the testing.

I wrote to Grandma: Grandma, I’m not good in sports, and Mom is making me sign up for sport. She says sports and rope climbing are two different categories. She wrote back: Dear Granddaughter, I heard a song recently that had a wonderful message. There may be mountain peaks you have to climb on, there may be rivers fast and wide you may have to ride on. Unless you dream, unless you try, how will you know how far you can fly? Remember these words and believe in yourself. It turned out that because of my mom and grandmother I continued to pursue sports. I was good at sports. However I never did climb a rope.

Letters passed between us every week and she often sent quotes by great people from newspapers and magazines. All of them, in one way or another, told me the same thing:” Believe in yourself, then you can reach even the farthest star.” I kept all of Grandma’s letters in a file. When I felt low and sad, I would read them one by one. They lifted my spirits, and I came back to my self again. The lessons my grandma taught in her letters will forever remain the most valuable and treasured ones.

Grandma never owned a computer and she didn’t foresee in the future that her granddaughter would be passing on some of her advice on a website. I wonder how will our granddaughters be passing on their grandmother’s advice in the future? What is going to replace computers?