Empower Yourself to Choose Happiness

​From Bechira: How Free Will Works by Dr. David Lieberman 

Without perspective, all of the good in our lives remains out of focus. We are left in a state of restless desire, goaded on by a sense of entitlement, with an inescapable finale: disappointment and despair. By comparison, a healthy perspective advances an attitude of appreciation and gratitude, which itself changes the quality of our lives.

​A summary of research:  

• Those who kept gratitude journals on a weekly basis exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives as a whole, and were more optimistic about the upcoming week compared to those who recorded hassles or neutral life events. 
• Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals (academic, interpersonal and health-based) over a two-month period compared to subjects in the other experimental conditions.

Feelings such as happiness are a direct reflection of our choices

The following is research out of Harvard University:

• Only 10 percent of our long-term happiness is predicted by the external world
• 90 percent of our long-term happiness is dependent on how our brain processes the external world. . . . 
• The external world does not predict your happiness, which is a freeing scientific realization about how much control you actually have over your happiness.

Our Sages say that before a person is born, G-d decrees whether that person will be clever or foolish, strong or weak, healthy or diseased, rich or poor. The only thing that is not preordained is whether the person will be a tzaddik (righteous person) or a rasha (wicked person) (Niddah 16b).  That depends on free will—how we choose to live our lives. Findings show what our Sages taught long ago: circumstances do not relate to life satisfaction, but subjective feelings do—and subjective feelings are a direct reflection of our choices, not conditions. 

(See book for footnote references)