Mike
Carruthers:
Are Americans generally happy with life?
Marci
Shimoff:
Research shows that one out of five women in America are
on anti-depressants. 25% of people in our society claim they are depressed. We
have an epidemic of unhappiness in our society. Marci
Shimoff, author of the book Happy
for No Reason, says if you want to be happier… Don't
believe everything you think. We have sixty thousand thoughts a day and for the
average person 80% of them are negative. Just because you have a thought doesn't
mean it's true. So, happy people have learned to question their thoughts and not
believe everything they think. How
happy you are has a lot to do with the people you associate with. We
catch the emotions of the people around us. They say that we become the average
of the five people we associate with the most. Hang out with people who are happier
and it will raise your happiness level. Just
the simple act of wishing happiness for others can actually improve your own level
of happiness. I'll
give you a quick story: a woman I interviewed named CJ had been very depressed.
She'd been in a wheelchair and she had Lupus. She heard about a simple practice
of wishing others well and she decided to try it. So, everyday she would send
thoughts and wishes of happiness and well-being silently in her own heart to people
she saw. A year after doing this she's out of the wheelchair, she's completely
symptom-free and her doctors say it was a medical miracle. The only thing she
did differently was to wish others well. Tomorrow
the habits of happy people - I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should
Know.
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