The house in the background look familiar?

We spent a few hours at the Full House park, catching some sun.  Charlie met a dog friend and they chased each other around for quite a while….the other owner and I were thrilled that they were tiring each other out.  Like promised, I didn’t change out of yoga pants yesterday.  I call that a good day.

I did manage to make this hefty lasagna though.  Someone (aka the Ironman I live with) is working out a ton and not eating much lately, so I thought some “man food” was in order. Recipe coming in another post.

And now to talk about happiness…………

I was reading an article on happiness the other day from Prevention Magazine (I think Julie of PBFingers posted the link) and found it really interesting.  The article was about the science behind what makes us happy.   They equated happiness with a deep contentment for life.  And not surprisingly, it isn’t about close relationships, money (duh), or  a career success.

Here’s what they said about the three things that make for happiness:

“One is the pleasant life, full of pleasure, joy, and good times. The second is the engaged life, in which you lose yourself to some passion or activity, experiencing what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, PhD, calls flow. And the third is the meaningful life: It may not have many high moments or blissful immersions, but it is packed with purpose.”

These three things are rather simple, but reading it made me think.  Bringing joy into our lives, the little moments like laughing.  Engaging and really living, not just standing to the side analyzing or going through the motions.  And then there’s having a purpose.  I really agree with the last one– the times in my life when I felt the most purpose, I felt the most happy.  I’m happy, but I think I don’t have enough faith in my own purpose at the moment.  And I don’t think I lose myself and fully engage enough either– I’m way too focused on just getting things done and going through the motions (aka, get through the workday, make food as fast as I can so I can get to the next thing on my to-do list, etc).

Easy to engage in the moment when you’re playing on the beach at sunset

Anyways, they also had an interesting article in April about Everything You Know About Happiness is Wrong. Check it out.

I like reading articles like this because more often than not, they encourage me to stop the rat race and remember to focus on the things that matter.  That these are the things that truly count.  They encourage me to keep finding that purpose, to fully engage when I can, etc.

–What do you think?  Secrets to Happiness?
–Do you agree with the three things they mentioned about being the most important thing to deep contentment in life?
– Do you like reading articles like this?