Happiness Theory
If you were to graph a person's happiness across time, you would see a bunch of ups and downs, as life's events affect us. There is a theory I read a few years ago, that states that each person has a different happiness potential. It would be graphed as a straight horizontal line across the graph.
For each person, that line is different. Some people are just happy, others seem miserable no matter what.
We always gravitate towards our line. Bad things happen, but we recover and climb back up to that line, but no higher, unless there are other outside circumstances. Good things happen, but the effects wear off, and we fall back to our comfortable line, wherever that is.
According to the theory, no matter what happens, it never takes longer than 6 months to fall back to the line. The best thing that could possibly happen to a person - the example they gave was hitting the lottery - and 6 months later that person is only as happy, or just as miserable as before. The worst thing that could possibly happen - the example they gave was the loss of a spouse or child - and 6 moths later we are hovering around the same line.
It is possible to move the line, but it takes what they described as nothing less than a spiritual awakening.
I've been anticipating this six month mark for this reason. It's no surprise that I'm quite disappointed now that it's here. They never went into details about that line moving down instead of up. Maybe because they couldn't think of a word for the opposite of a spiritual awakening. Well, whether there is a word for it or not, I seem to have definitely experienced it. After six months, I think it's pretty safe to say that my line has moved.
LM
For each person, that line is different. Some people are just happy, others seem miserable no matter what.
We always gravitate towards our line. Bad things happen, but we recover and climb back up to that line, but no higher, unless there are other outside circumstances. Good things happen, but the effects wear off, and we fall back to our comfortable line, wherever that is.
According to the theory, no matter what happens, it never takes longer than 6 months to fall back to the line. The best thing that could possibly happen to a person - the example they gave was hitting the lottery - and 6 months later that person is only as happy, or just as miserable as before. The worst thing that could possibly happen - the example they gave was the loss of a spouse or child - and 6 moths later we are hovering around the same line.
It is possible to move the line, but it takes what they described as nothing less than a spiritual awakening.
I've been anticipating this six month mark for this reason. It's no surprise that I'm quite disappointed now that it's here. They never went into details about that line moving down instead of up. Maybe because they couldn't think of a word for the opposite of a spiritual awakening. Well, whether there is a word for it or not, I seem to have definitely experienced it. After six months, I think it's pretty safe to say that my line has moved.
LM