The Final Blog Post!!!!!!! (except when i make my blog for the happiest day assignment)
Dun dun dun, the Chapter 10 finale is finally upon us, and with it, Sonja Lyubomirsky is about to give us some crazy knowledge about the five key principles that will apparently support lasting happiness. First, let’s start off with the fact that positive emotions are something that must be repeated and varied in order to prevent adaptation. That’s a lot of big words, so basically what this means is that if you do the same positive activity over and over, your brain will get used to it and it won’t work anymore. Too much coping = no more success.
Second, activities should fit your personality and values to feel authentic, which means that happiness feels and works best when it’s natural and something that fits your vibe, not something forced. Basically, do what you enjoy and feel comfortable with. That means that when practicing happiness activities, the more you like something, the more likely you are to stick with it. This leads to the third point, in which they should come naturally and be enjoyable, which I think is pretty self-explanatory: find something that makes you happy and is easy—it will keep you happy. Pretty simple. Next up is fourth and fifth. Fourth is that sustaining happiness requires ongoing effort and commitment—it’s not automatic. This means that staying happy over time takes regular effort and that you’ve actually gotta work at it. Shocking. Happiness doesn’t just happen on its own, and even the best strategies won’t help if you just try once and it doesn’t work out. It’s important to do stuff like set up goals and self-reflection, and literally everything else we learned about through this book. This leads perfectly into the fifth point, where finding good social supports plays a vital role in these processes, as surrounding yourself with encouraging people really helps maintain these happiness habits. So go out there and find some awesome friends who will uplift you and make sure you stick to becoming mentally well.
Not gonna lie, when you said to read the afterward, postscript, appendix, and everything else, I thought it was kinda crazy, but actually, there’s some good information in there that’s worth talking about. Our fan-favorite character, Sonja, talks about how writing a book about happiness actually grew her understanding of happiness quite a bit, in tons of ways she didn’t even expect. She said that even though she studied happiness for years, actually trying and doing the activities made a huge difference for her. Shocking, a psychologist actually practicing what they preach—pretty unheard of. She states that some parts of her book, specifically focused on some of the things that she wasn’t good at so she could see the results, and voilà, they actually had the biggest impact on her. She realized that by actually following these simple habits, people can feel better. I really liked this as a final message because she said that now she hopes by people reading her messages, they’ll try them too. I’ve been putting some of these into practice, and I’ve noticed I’m much happier in my relationships. Taking the time to appreciate and reflect on your friends and family really pays off, and for that, I say this book was amazingly worth the read.
