Happiness is one of the most critical human aspirations in any era. Martin Seligman (2004) outlines three main ways to achieve it. Engagement allows people to be kind to each other and exchange positive emotions. Pleasure relieves people of unnecessary needs and helps them to be happy and confident. Meaning is a quality due to which people stand firmly on their feet and follow their principles. Undoubtedly, each of these qualities is vital for a good life (Yaden et al., 2017). For me, the most important of them is engagement in all aspects of life, since social contacts are the basis of people’s existence. By helping others, people get a reward and thus fill their own lives with positive emotions and events (Reece & Reece, 2016). A striking example is a charity, thanks to which people can feel that they have done something useful for others. However, this also manifests itself in everyday life. For instance, I often feel gratitude from my family when preparing dinner or doing laundry for them, and it makes us emotionally closer.
According to the test, my strengths are teamwork, gratitude, and the appreciation of beauty and excellence (VIA Institute on Character). Indeed, these qualities are useful in everyday life and help me build strong relationships. For example, teamwork is the best way to solve an issue using joint efforts. It often helps me and my friends to use the strengths of each member of the team during group work at the university. Gratitude for all that is around me is also essential for a good life, making me emotionally closer to the people that surround me. We exchange this feeling and thus like each other more and create an atmosphere of trust. I have the opportunity to make friends and be surrounded by family, and this is already an occasion for gratitude. Thanks to this we build strong relations with these people.
I also indeed appreciate the beauty and excellence that appear even in little things. This allows me to continually look at the world from a new perspective and feel a lot of positive emotions. As a consequence, the positive relationship towards life and other people helps me trust the world more and become closer to people. Sometimes I can call myself a truly happy person and try to keep this feeling.
References
Reece, B., & Reece, M. (2016). Effective human relations: Interpersonal and organizational applications (13th ed). Cengage Learning.
Seligman, M. (2004). The new era of positive psychology [Video]. TED. Web.
VIA Institute on Character. The VIA character strength survey. (n.d.). 2020, Web.
Yaden, D. B., Haidt, J., Hood, R. W., Jr., Vago, D. R., & Newberg, A. B. (2017). The Varieties of Self-Transcendent Experience. Review of General Psychology, Web.