On Happiness, Science Agrees with Jesus and the Saints

I mean, that’s how I’m taking this:

Now, after decades of research and a dozen clinical trials, researchers at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, say they’ve actually cracked the code to being happy, and published it in a handbook.

Dr. Amit Sood led the research and says the first and foremost way to be happy is to focus our attention.

“You can choose to live focusing on what is not right in your life,” Dr. Sood said.
[…]
“So for example, if you’ve had a difficult day, when you get back home, for the first three minutes, forget about it, park it, and meet your family as if they’re long lost friends,” Dr. Sood added.

And perhaps one of the biggest hindrances to being happy is too much thinking about one’s self, research shows. [Emphasis mine – admin]

“Complainers are never going to be happy,” Ketchian said. “Happiness is a decision.”

Oh, my! That validates what many people have said here and here over the past week, and what I say myself. It’s all a choice, and it’s not about the “give me” but about the “please, take!”.

And it validates Christ Jesus, and numerous saints and popes, too:

…do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
— Matthew 6:25

Happy is the youth, because he has time before him to do good.
— Saint Philip Neri

“There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.”
–Saint Augustine

“A life not lived for others is not a life.”
― Mother Teresa

Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.
— Saint Teresa of Avila

But I’m being a bit puckish, of course. One needn’t be a saint, or even a Christian to understand that thinking of others before thinking of the self is the better way:

When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

There are two kinds of people in the world –
those who walk into a room and say ‘Here I am’
and those who say ‘There you are’.
— Abigail Van Buren (Dear Abby)

“Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.”
— Booker T. Washington

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson