@Salim I'm glad your accident ended up with you being OK in the big picture.
I don't say it as a casual statement, I say it as someone who has dedicated an enormous amount of work to understand well being and happiness.
I totally get that about you, having read some of your other writings here & there on this forum.
Life does not make you happy, how you approach it makes you happy. That's why there are so many people who have literally everything they need to be happy, who are walking around miserable. Our society doesn't teach people how to be happy.
It's actually quite challenging for most people.
I scratch the surface of most people around me, and the vast majority aren't nearly as happy as they pretend to be. They're just used to it and think that it's normal.
Is there more to it than the correct approach? I can think of no better place for you to drop nuggets of wisdom re: happiness than this thread! If you are so inclined. :)
Well, it will depend on the individual.
First, I don't actually like the term happiness, because it can be interpreted in a lot of ways. Does it mean an overall state, or a momentary experience, or an approach, gratitude, or whatever.
I prefer to use the terms thriving and well being, because that's pretty clear to me. Someone is either thriving and doing well or they aren't. A lot of people will say they're happy because they have a lot of things in life that they're incredibly grateful for, but it's obvious that they are struggling and burning out.
So in terms of well being and thriving, there are two main elements.
1: removing barriers to well being
2: learning to thrive and foster well being
1: Barriers
I'm from a Danish family, the Danes are known for being the happiest people in the world. Except, they aren't actually particularly cheerful people, what they are, on average, is less burdened with barriers to well being as a society.
It's not that they're exuberantly joyful and that balances out the normal shit of life, it's that they're missing a lot of the worst parts of life. They trust their government, they trust their communities, they trust their general safety, and they trust their social programs.
You have to remove the barriers to thriving in order to obtain a general state of well being.
The key is understanding these barriers, and those vary for everyone. But the common theme is that they are things that cause ongoing trauma. Ongoing trauma is caused by circumstances that are a combo of the following: repeated, unpredictable, and perceived as unjust. Prime examples are abusive relationships, toxic workplaces, and addiction.
Barriers are things that cannot be coped through, as long as they are an active force, no matter what you do, they will continue to deteriorate your well being. The longer they are present, the more damage accrues, the more work it will take to recover, and the more likelihood of permanent damage.
2: learning to thrive and foster well being
This is also individual. The tricky part is that almost everything society indoctrinates us to believe is important will actually work against this goal. So it's a constant navigation between what feels like the right thing to do, and what's actually going to work.
For this part, especially when someone is working from a major deficit, I usually start with identifying key indicators of wellness, because they're universal. No matter what the individual needs to thrive, these key indicators will improve along the way.
Key Indicators:
-good sleep
-waking feeling rested and at ease
-excellent nutrition
-frequent, enjoyable exercise
-quality time spent with loved ones
These are very, very simple, basic quality of life metrics that the vast majority of people do not have in their lives. But they are excellent key indicators of thriving, and they're the things that quickly become compromised when a system is taxed outside of its adaptive capacity.
You can't just pressure yourself to have a happier approach to life, it has to be a systematic approach to nurturing your own well being, the way you would for a child. You have to care 100% of the time how you are doing, what you really need, and how you are going to get it. Because no one else will do it otherwise.
