The Secret of Happiness

 This post will discuss the secret of happiness, the subject of many books, and studies, but actually very simple, which is to be grateful, appreciative, and thankful.

I understand there has been a fair amount of research into this, but I'm not looked into this, but learned this through my study of narcissism.

Narcissism (I'm referring to especially in the context of narcissistic personality disorder) is characterized by a number of things, including excessively seeking attention, excessive dreaming of something better (a better job, a better mate, etc.), perceiving oneself as special and that only other special people perceive this, feelings of grandiosity, an exaggerated sense of entitlement, manipulating others, a lack of compassion for others, arrogance, and excessive jealousy.  I was interested in which of these symptoms is the horse, and which the care, and discovered that the horse is the exaggerated sense of entitlement, whereas "arrogance" is essentially a synonym for narcissism.

An exaggerated sense of entitlement induces one to feel one deserves more than one has, which leads to the other symptoms.  For example, it's easy to see how this would lead one to be excessively jealous. Let's look at a couple of others a bit less obvious.

In regards to a lack of compassion, this follows from being excessively concerned with one's own needs.  In regards to manipulating others, this follows again from being excessively concerned with one's own needs, and not caring about the impact of others, because the needs of others is not the priority.

A common misconception is that narcissists look to hurt others by their selfish behavior, but the reality is it's more often the case that they just don't notice what they're doing, in the sense of their behavior hurting others, and they certainly have no concept of their behavior being inappropriate.

After noticing entitlement was the driver for narcissism, I wondered what the antidote might be, and upon a little reflection it seemed that gratitude, appreciation and thankfulness fill the bill. It also occurred to me that doing these things makes one feel happy, and hence this short blog post.

If you just think about the nice things that people who love you do for you, you immediately feel a warm glow inside. Also it makes you want to do nice things for others to reciprocate, which is one of the strongest compulsions humans have, an example being that free samples make you want to buy the given product.

Feeling appreciated provides a strong source of resilience, when things are going poorly.  When things are going well, build up a reserve, by cultivating gratitude when things are going well.  Appreciating others, and letting them know, is a way to build up their resilience when things go bad.  Additionally, if the other person is someone close to you, like your spouse, that will obviously be helpful for you.  Words and acts of appreciation are one of the best things one can do, perhaps the most effective, so strengthen a marriage, as well as other relationships.

To conclude, to be happy, be grateful, appreciative, and thankful, which will keep the narcissism away.