I choosed a good choice

Happiness, it turns out, comes from a collection of small, pleasant events, experienced on a daily basis. The more good interactions we have, the happier we are. Happiness is cumulative, and frequency trumps intensity.

I choosed a good choice by Nancy Knowlton

A number of years ago we had some young girls come to spend the night with us, as they often did. On the way to our home we stopped at the grocery store, and I said that each of the girls could choose what they wanted for breakfast. They headed for the cereal aisle and carefully looked at all of the packages on the shelves. After a time, the youngest girl came up to me with a large box of Lucky Charms clasped tight to her chest, a big smile on her face, and triumphantly declared, “I choosed a good choice.” Her excited declaration brought a smile to my face, because at that moment something so small as being able to choose a sugary cereal for breakfast the next day had made her truly happy.

Finding joy in small things

It’s one thing for a child to find the joy in small things, but what about adults? And how about in our home and personal lives compared to our work lives? Are we even conscious about our happiness (or not) as we move through our activity-packed days? Do we know when we are happy and when we are not, and in each case, why?

I believe that a lot can be said for happiness and recognizing it in the small things that we experience every day. I haven’t done the research to prove my thesis, but it has always struck me that positive and happy people have better lives than those who are negative and unhappy. I know that I prefer to be around happy people, even as we are struggling with challenges and problems.

Employee happiness

It turns out that there actually is a lot of research on the subject of happiness, much of it from a productivity-at-work perspective. How employee happiness drives profitability is a key theme in the research. Harvard Business Review captured some good themes in its January/February 2012 issue with the cover story entitled The value of happiness: How employee well-being drives profits. It’s worth a read and active consideration. What we think about our own happiness really does matter. More than that, we can impact our happiness and learn new, productive behaviors.

No value to unhappiness

A couple of important points resonated with me in the articles, starting with the debunking of the somewhat widely held belief that unhappiness spurs creativity and good performance. There is an emphatic denial of any value to being unhappy and its connection to performance. While some unhappy people may be creative, unhappiness does not lead to creativity generally.

The key to real happiness

The most remarkable point and the one that is of greatest value to all of us is what the research says is the key to real happiness. It’s not our job, the things that we have or our income. It’s our social circle – our family and friends and the strength of our relationships with them. For me that translates to the simple things that we enjoy with family and friends. It’s the time that we spend talking and just hanging out over food and wine.

Happiness is cumulative

Happiness, it turns out, comes from a collection of small, pleasant events, experienced on a daily basis. The more good interactions we have, the happier we are. Happiness is cumulative. It doesn’t matter how intense the pleasant event is – it doesn’t have to be a big, happy experience for it to contribute to a person’s well-being. Frequency trumps intensity.

Expressing happiness

For Dave and me, recognizing the positive things in our lives overtly and concluding that we are happy has proven critical in our own sense of happiness. Expressing that happiness is important in our personal and work lives as well. Easy to say and do for us, because it is such an ingrained habit. Through the years, we (Dave and I plus the family of the young girl) have used her wonderful expression many times. It makes all of us smile for the sincerity and the cuteness of her expressed happiness, but it also helps us verbalize our own happiness at small things that happen every day. It turns out that we have chosen to be happy, and we have indeed choosed a good choice on so many fronts.

Postscript

Think that happiness is a fluffy and insubstantial subject? Think again. It’s a key building block of mental health and it matters as much as physical health. Parents, educators, friends and employers can take conscious actions to improve happiness – their own and that of others. I can’t help but believe that this would be a great choice to make.

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Nancy Knowlton is co-founder and CEO of Nureva Inc. and previously the co-founder and CEO of SMART Technologies. She writes about education, entrepreneurship, business management, technology, innovation and other passions.