Hey guys, it's JR right here
Today let's talk about how to be happy
Scientifically
You've probably already heard of the most popular class in Yale University, within its 317 year old history
1 out of 4 Yale students have attended this class called "Psychology and the Good Life"
Sounds like something I would sign up for
If I were back in college
And if I could make it into Yale in the first place
Psychology and the good life is taught by professor Laurie Santos
She's a professor in psychology
She doesn't just teach in class though
She actually lives on campus with the students
so that she has a good picture of what campus life is about these days
But what she found she wasn't happy about
Yale students are extremely privileged
They have all these abundant resources, opportunities
Their future is literally shining bright like a diamond
But how they react to this is with
Anxiety
They're just too stressed out to even enjoy life on campus
And the thing is, it's not just Yale
This is a widely seen phenomenon across
all schools, all organizations, all workplaces, all ages
And I bet it's even worse here in Asia
So today let's talk about how to be happy with a good life
Now this is a whole semester's course at Yale University with all sorts of practices
You can also get it free on the internet, which is a free condensed version of it
Maybe 30 40 hours I think
I viewed the crash course, which is a one-hour lecture on YouTube
So this video is like a crash course of a crash course
How would you put it?
crash crash course?
crash crash crash course?
Anyways, the course is based on two domains of psychology
The first is "positive psychology", which is basically research on what happy people do to become happy
And then there's the second domain
Behavioral Change
Now that you know the theories of becoming happy
you have to actually alter your behavior in order to make a change in your daily life
The course puts it down into ten insights
The first four points are these psychological theories and the rest are the actual practices
Today we'll talk about half of these insights
starting with the theories, and we'll give you a heads up on the actual practices starting from point 5
As for the rest, we'll leave it to the next video
cuz we don't want to make this video too long, right?
So here they are
#1 We can control a lot more happiness than we think
This is gonna surprise you
But according to research, 50% of our happiness lies within the genes
In other words, we get it from our parents
Wow, like 50% of that! That is quite a lot!
I'm pretty happy that my parents seem like to be quite happy people
I think
But if you see it the other way around
we actually get control over the other 50%
It's kind of like seeing the glass half-full or half-empty
Pretty much up to you
And that 50% is the area where we can work on
#2 The things we think matter a lot about our well-being are usually overestimated
Now we've got 50% of space to work on now, right?
We're thinking of getting rid of the bad things in life
bringing in more good stuff
Good in, bad out
Simple logic
But research shows that either in good or bad circumstances
The positive or negative effect only lasts for a short amount of time
Say for example, people who've won the lottery, they go bonkers on the day they've won
Like who wouldn't?
Or else give me your money
But that sort of happiness only lasts for an average of six months
After that, their happiness level is indistinguishable from controls
So in other words, these things..
material, money, a promotion, college admission, a boy or girlfriend
These might have a certain degree of influence over your happiness
But the influence is way smaller in proportion than we think
And it lasts way shorter than we think
So what are the crucial factors to happiness then?
We'll get to that soon
But first, walk with me
#3 Becoming happier takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of daily work.
Namely, you got to walk the walk
You can't just talk to talk
Just by watching this video alone won't make you a happier person
And that is a guarantee
Imagine yourself going to a class on exercise
You want to get fit. You want to build those muscles
You don't grow muscles just by attending class alone
You grow muscles by attending class
learning the basics, the knowledge, the know-how on how to get your body fit
And then putting it into practice
Not just once, but repeatedly every single day
That's how you get fit
And it's the same in pursuing happiness
First, well we gotta sit down cuz I'm getting a little bit tired
First, you gotta learn the basics, the know-how, the positive psychology
on how happy people become happy
And then you got to put it into practice in your daily life
That's how it works
And that leads us to number four
Let us just recognize that..
The mind lies a lot of the time about what it means to be happy
Our minds forecast on what will make us happy
But oftentimes, the fact is..
We don't turn out as happy as we assume we would be
And the most obvious example would probably be the expectations of happiness coming from our salary
According to research in the U.S.
if you are below the poverty line
there will be a significant bump up in your happiness level if your salary jumps up from 10,000 to 20,000 US dollars
But from a certain point on, that effect levels off very quickly
We think that if we get twice the salary or twice the material possessions than we have now
we will be twice as happy, right?
But wrong! That is a wrong assumption that your mind is telling you
I think it's fair to say that material can bring you happiness
But at a very very basic level
And beyond that
Happiness relies in other factors in life
So so far we've shed light on the four theories
First of all, number one
50% of happiness is inherited in the genes
but on the other hand
That means we have control over the other 50%
Number two
Either in good or bad circumstances
the positive or negative effects only last for a short amount of time
Number three, if you want to be happy, you gotta learn the know-how and then you gotta to walk the walk
Number four, our mind lies to us about what it means to be happy
So you got to quit chasing those delusional thoughts
And starting from point five
These are the actual things you can do to boost your happiness in your daily life
So #5
Very happy people make time for social connection
Happy people tend to spend more time with family, close friends, loved ones
They prioritize spending time with people they care of
What's funny is, according to research..
Even interacting with strangers can boost up your happiness level
And this really strikes a chord with me
Cuz you know, the essence of my work doesn't really give me much time to hang out with people
I do have some friends that I regularly do sports with or go out to lunch for dinner with
And whenever I have an appointment in the evening
It gives me this great momentum to work even harder during daytime
because I'm looking forward to something good in the evening
It gets me all pumped up
But even when I don't have plans for the day.. I don't have an arrangement with someone..
what I usually do to recharge my batteries is..
I take a walk outside
Just to get a feel of people
Cuz when you're around people, you feel this good feeling inside of you
I don't even have to literally talk to someone
Actually I'm quite of an introvert
So you know, striking up a conversation with a stranger
Not quite suitable for me
But as I said, just by being around people gives you this good feeling
And that is not something that can be replaced by social media
If interaction on the Internet could boost up your happiness
Then I'd be a fluent in happiness
Cuz I get tons of mail and messages from my fans every single day
Thank you guys for the support, by the way. Love you guys!
But just saying, you just can't compare it to real life face-to-face connection
And that's why I encourage you.. I urge you..
to put down your phone and hang out with real people
Social connections is a crucial factor to happiness
So that's about it for this episode
And we just covered the first five insights on Yale's most popular class in history
on how to be happy
And we will be back with the other five insights in our next video
As I said, this is just a 7,8 minute video
We can't cover it all in detail
But this is just to give you a brief summary of what it's like
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Thank you guys very much. See you guys next video