How do you define happiness?
I ran a contest in "Your Daily Dose of Happiness" to see how
people define happiness. I was stunned to discover that I am the
only person who defines happiness as an extra helping of
cheesecake.
There were other shockers, too.
We know that money can't buy happiness ... except, of course,
when we are flat broke. But I figured several people would
define happiness, at least in part, as a bulging bank vault or
"financial freedom". Just three people cited money in their
definitions of happiness.
I also figured many people would cite health as part of their
definition of happiness, as in "health, wealth, and happiness".
But only four people mentioned health.
No health? No wealth? How do people define happiness?
The top rated mention goes to family. It seems that we might be
flat broke and deathly ill, but a loving family will make us
happy just the same.
Altruism and kindness are also key. It seems we smile by making
others smile. Isn't that nice? No health and no wealth. Just
smile.
Faith scores big, too. This works out very well, because we can
ask our loving family to pray for a speedy recovery and a big
win in El Gordo next month (assuming we recover first).
What does this mean? It means the spammers have it all wrong.
They keep sending us useless emails about making money.
A typical spam message says, "Get the insider secrets to making
millions on the Internet. I will give you these valuable secrets
for peanuts just because I love your smile so much. You could
make $5,433 in the next hour if you act now. Hurry. Don't wait.
This is the real thing. You can trust me. All the others are
just scammers."
Instead, spammers should be sending offers like, "Get the
insider secret to building a loving family on the Internet. I
will give you these valuable secrets for peanuts (and a big
virtual hug) just because I love your smile so much. You could
love your kids, spouses, uncles, parents, pets