[kawaiigurl1981]

Lately I find myself thinking about years ago when I was a psychology major learning about the set point theory of happiness and a study by Brickman et al. (1978). Basically the study followed a group of people that had just won the lottery and another group that had just become paralyzed, after a period of adjustment both groups returned to the same levels of happiness they experienced prior to the life changing event. What I take from that is that individual capacity for happiness is an unchangeable aspect of one's personality. From experience I know that I personally am prone to malcontent. The question that this begs is that if I know that I cannot be happy. what can I be instead ? Where should I focus my energy and effort ? If I know that I am not ever going to be very happy and that there is no point exerting effort to become happy what can I do that will make a difference to my level of life satisfaction ?

[Perna]

I guess it depends on how you define happiness. I like Mihaly Csikszentmiihalyi's idea of "Flow": Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the secret to happiness | Talk Video | TED.com

[Revu2]

Hi there,

Some beginning ideas: Brickman studied folks who had external events shake up their worlds, this study may or may not apply to internal efforts. In other words, additional research is required for internally motivated change.

2) General studies may not be applicable to you or me specifically.

3) You may be the first to discover via personal effort how to reset the set point.

That mentioned, maybe pointing towards Joy, or Delight, or Savoring, or Contentment, or Acceptance, etc. could motivate you.

Revu2