Author Archives: oana

Inspired how to Connect with Others

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According to Dalai Lama, connecting with others is a source of happiness (The Art of Happiness). However, practising how to connect with others in an unfriendly environment may turn out to be very difficult, sometimes we may be tempted to give up. When we become parents, it is very important how we behave with others. Our children are there watching and they’ll remember when they become adults.

Connecting with others in a foreign culture

For me, the need to connect with others is like the need to breathe air. Maybe I wouldn’t have realised this, if I hadn’t moved to another country. After years of introducing myself to others as a foreigner, I have understood the importance of connecting with others to my lasting happiness. The problem is that the local culture is not encouraging the small talk. I have felt like a Don Quijote of modern times when communicating with others. Day by day, my small world was built on the foundations laid by the interaction with the few work colleagues and the few friends.

I sank into emotional distance. I was weeping in my loneliness as a foreigner surrounded by locals who are fond of silence and personal independence. I became faithful participant to the gym with the hope that I would stumble upon some friendly others. In vain! Years passed by, and I felt emotionally handicapped. The friends that I saw once a months were not enough to satisfy the thirst of human intimacy and closeness.

Connecting with other mothers is important but equally hard as with the rest

Having a family in the new country gave meaning to life. It saved my emotional life. For a while, I was so in love that nothing mattered. Alas, one day when I was walking with my baby, I realised that the family does not replace the basic human need to be able to connect with others. Becoming a stay-at-home mother makes things worse.The social interactions are limited. The emotional distance that I felt before becomes even bigger.

Visiting the playground became the daily challenge to reach out to the other mothers. Unlike me, they seem to be self-sufficient in their small world. No eye to eye contact, not a polite smile.

My baby smiles and comes closer to other babies. He is puzzled by the lack of response and he looks back at me. I shrug my shoulders, “What can I tell him?”. After few seconds, he approaches again other babies. Again and again, until he finds one baby that reciprocates and they start playing.

When the inspiration stroke

One day, I decided to imitate my baby’s behaviour. I initiated the small talk. I started talking to other mothers at the playground. I pretended I don’t see their reluctance to talk and smiled back. Deep inside, I was infuriated. I considered buying plane tickets and fly us far away from the country. In that moment of fury, Dalai Lama’s wisdom seemed but an utopia.

Why bother to reach out when you seem to be  the only one doing it?

Connecting with others means tapping into our compassion and building the strong foundation which makes us human:

“And once you encourage the thought of compassion in your mind, once that thought becomes active, then your attitude towards others changes automatically. If you approach others with the thought of compassion, that will automatically reduce fear and allow an openness with other people. It creates a positive, friendly atmosphere…And with that attitude, even if other person is unfriendly or doesn’t respond to you in a positive way, then at least you’ve approached the person with a feeling of openness that gives you a certain flexibility and the freedom to change your approach as needed.” (Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness)

To my mind, connecting with others is not only about being open or any other fear. It is also about knowing how to deal when you offer a part of you to someone who does not appreciate it. Here it is the point where we need to learn how to cultivate compassion and stay calm when confronted with unfriendly behaviours.

It’s worth to keep on fighting for connecting with others, despite their coldness and indifference. There are days that bring wonderful surprises. Some of the others reciprocate with friendliness and they share stories from their lives. I smile and I feel warmth. I feel human and energised.

A simple but friendly interaction can increase the daily happiness. My baby feels the positive vibes in the air as well. He continues playing happily.

Conclusion

When we become parents, we embrace the responsibility to be a role model for our children. Those of us who live in multicultural contexts, we want to show to our children that despite the multiculturalism where we may not always understand others, we can choose to relate to others as human beings, and not as national identities.

We want to expose our children to multicultural interactions. If others turn their back on us, we can explain to our children that it is OK to be sad.

It is not OK to become the centre of our sadness. Instead, we can try to relate to the unfriendly others at a human level, thinking that “She must have a bad day!”. Maybe tomorrow will bless us with a positive interaction.

The important lesson is to keep on practising our attitude to others on both occasions: when treated with friendliness and when treated with unfriendliness. It is a painful work, but it is one of the tickets to our lasting happiness! And an excellent example to our children!

 

What Does It Mean To Be a Parent?

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Risking to enter the vegetative state?

Some people, like a former work colleague, do not even want to have children. This ex-colleague of mine believed that having children turns the parents into vegetative beings whose only role is to serve their offspring. I was quite taken aback when he stated his view.

For more than one year, I have experienced motherhood and continuous sleep deprivation. I must admit that there are days when I am in a vegetative state. But this mood is only the shell of my inner being. Deep inside, each day brings into light a new layer of the love I have for my little one. Furthermore, until now, I have figured out that parenthood is a mysterious journey, which can’t be anticipated.

What does love for our children mean?

It is easy to love my child when he smiles, when he is playful and funny. The challenge comes when he is cranky, whining, screaming and lying on the floor in protest – he has such behaviours even if he is only 15 months old. In those moments of “family crisis”, deep inside I love him equally and even more but at the surface, I am faced with negative emotions such as anger and irritation. And that’s when the challenge lies. Keeping the calm and finding ways out of these moments of crisis are must-to-develop skills for me and any other parent, most certainly.

We all want to bring up healthy, balanced and loving children, who have happy and meaningful lives. It is though so tempting to expect from our children to live the life we want them to live. And here, there is another challenge of parenthood: letting our children grow into adults and avoiding to burden them with our expectations.

My son’s uncle brings him toys and says, “He’ll be an engineer”. Sometimes I look at my son and I think, “He’ll be a dancer”. Few seconds after, I correct myself, “What are you thinking, woman? He’ll be whatever he wants to be.”

I don’t need to decide on his behalf what will make him happy. Instead, I need to make sure he is loved and we are present for him when he needs us.

Torn between love and setting limits

When he thinks he needs to climb on the kitchen cupboard, I say “No”, and he cries. It hurts so much more than I expected. But this is the journey of parenthood, rich in unexpected experiences and feelings.

A father’s confession

BTW. I stumbled upon a father’s confession about the inner changes that happened in him after his first baby was born. He realised that his individuality was turned into “duoviduality”: http://frankmartela.fi/2012/01/birth-of-a-child-or-when-you-expand-from-an-individual-into-a-duovidual/

It is revealing to hear some testimonials from the world of fathers in the Western societies as well.

So, Who Are You?

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We are busy

Single people, people in relationships, people having a family – we buzz around all day long, in the pursuit of deeds that we perceive more or less meaningful.

Even the standard reply to the question “How are you?” has changed from “I am fine.” to “I am busy”. I wonder. Is it possible that we WANT to keep ourselves busy? Otherwise, how would we know what to do with ourselves? What thoughts and feelings would we have during half an hour of sitting in silence?

With whom to be better connected than with yourself?

When the evening comes and we put our head on the pillow, do we impersonate the wife, mother, student or subordinate that we were during daytime? Why not trying to find ourselves in the few minutes before sliding into the world of sleep?

What a treat at the end of the day, to reconnect to ourselves, to the joyous soul with which we came into this world! If we want to know why we came into this world, wouldn’t it be sensible to try to figure out who we were when we landed here? Who we were before we were damaged?

Maybe one night we get lucky and we feel our soul. We feel its core, its breath, and its wholeness. Who knows what else we would discover about who we truly are?

What if we don’t know how to reconnect to ourselves?

We need to look for help from the external environment so that we are put on the right track, which we would later follow on our own.

We need EXPOSURE. We need to start opening the channel that connects us to ourselves. For example, finding a group of people who are in a similar search and join them. Talk and discuss.

See the example of the Paphos Seminar, a one-week seminar on the psychology and philosophy of the good life, which has been organised twice a year for 18 years in Paphos, Cyprus by the philosopher Esa Saarinen (professor at Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland). The aim of the seminar is to help people “to construct their own ideas and to spread them internally”, “to open a broadband channel to people’ subjective sense of life orientation.” No ideas are imposed, simply a framework of philosophical ideas that offer food for thought. The participants are free to become emotional as they reflect upon different themes related to life, such as “present moment”, “love”, “choice” and “respect”. At the end of the seminar, each attendant discovers new insights into herself/himself.

The idea of this seminar can be replicated at a smaller case by you, me, by everyone. For example, how about gathering a group of friends with an interest in say, finding happiness, and discuss relevant books, every three months? (since we are busy people, maybe a more frequent interval for meetings is out of question.)

How about those ones of us who are too shy and too introvert for such sort of group activities? In this case, skipping the discussions and reading books on our own may equally help. Whatever works as long as we feel we have reached access the core of our souls.

Reflecting upon our life is enlightening the haze inside us. We don’t know why we are here but we should feel grateful for the life that was offered to us. Why not do the most with it and start by rescuing ourselves?

The Dormant Richness Inside Each One Of Us

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Where does happiness come from?

“Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.”, Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father of USA.

Most certainly, it is easy to agree with Benjamin Franklin’s view on happiness. We all have our small joys in life, such as watching a TV series or going to an ice-hockey game in the weekend. The problem is that we don’t perceive these small joys as real and long-lasting happiness. Instead, our minds are wired to chase the happiness, which comes from the “good fortune”. And this is how we go through life feeling empty, depressed, miserable, self-disillusioned and bitter.

The hope helps us survive the bottom line. We will be happy when we find love, when we get our dream job, when I get promoted, when we become a mother, when our sexual life gets better, when we are rich, after I divorce, etc. Yet, all these future expectations are beguiling and the very source of unhappiness. For example, if you do become rich, there will always be room for making more money. Therefore, the chase after happiness continues and the present is a struggle. Or, if you do get promoted, you may be disillusioned to realise that it is not bringing as much happiness as you expected.

Are there any chance for us human beings to be happy at certain points in our lifetime?

Research on happiness has flourished in the last ten years, offering to individuals self-help tips on how to find their own happiness. Here are few books, which I consider worthy of mentioning: Sonja Lyubormiski, The Myths of Happiness, and Robert Biswas-Diener and Ed Diener, Unlocking The Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Scientific studies show that we can at least reach happy moods and irrespective of what causes these happy moods, they “lead people to be more productive, more likeable, more active, more healthy, more friendly, more helpful, more resilient, and more creative.” (Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness, pp. 265)

Have you ever made this test to observe people from the distance? If you did, I am sure you agree that you can spot the unhappy ones by the way they carry themselves. Especially in the case of us women, the gloomy atmosphere in our minds reflects in our body movements.

Has it ever happened to you to adopt new ways of thinking for few days and think you are finally happy just before you slide back into the old way of viewing the world? Is sustainable happiness but an abstract concept that exists in the work of psychologists such as Sonja Lyubomirsky?

Can we reach a steady level of happiness?

How we relate to happiness differs from one individual to another, depending on our genetical heritage, our childhood and adulthood experiences. However, I strongly believe that we all can find our glimpses of long-lasting happiness by digging out the dusty characteristics which make us human.

Compassion, empathy, love, gratitude, altruism, soul-to-soul connection: they all live in us, the problem is that they have been forgotten. The age of science has brought wonderful advancements into the world at the cost of taking us away from who we really are: human beings.

If we want to be happy, we need to take a good look inside and cultivate the seeds of all these characteristics that make us human. Yes, it hurts when we feel that there is not love in our life. While we are waiting for love, we’d benefit from turning our face and soul towards the people around us and offer them the crumbles of love that there are in us. When we hear about a sick person who needs money for surgery, why not donating few euros from our income? Why not joining a group of people with similar interests?

Life happens now and we fool ourselves if we think we have control over it and we’ll be happy tomorrow. If we can control something, well that something is the humanity in us. The happiness will follow it.

 

I Dream of Seeing More Compassion

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What Do Religions Teach us?

Compassion, the feeling of concern for other person’s wellbeing, is one the main teachings of buddhism. In his book, Becoming Enlightened, His Holiness Dalai Lama talks about engendering great compassion on way to enlightenment. He describes seven steps to committing yourself to help others, which revolve around the idea of teaching your mind to find everyone dear and cultivate love for human beings, such as the poor and vulnerable.

Christianity talks also about the compassion in the parable of the good Samaritan, told by Jesus in the New Testament. The Samaritan helps a traveller which had been beaten and left almost dead on the side of the road, whereas the priest who had first passed by avoided the injured man.

My Experiences

My mother has always told me to help people who are in need. She repeated this message so many times throughout my childhood that it became one of my fundamental believes.

At my grandfather’s funeral, a friend of his told me a story about grandfather. One night, the two of them were walking home. They met a stranger who was going to walk all the way to the next village. It was a cold night and grandfather offered his jacket to the stranger. He was quite close to his home and the stranger needed the jacket more than he did. I was very close to my late grandfather but he had never mentioned this story to me. I would have never known it if it hadn’t been for his friend.

Ever since I’ve been a mother, I became more aware about how people behave towards my baby and I. For example, for one year, I have been walking around pushing the pram and carrying the baby bag in my back. When entering the stores, I keep the door open with one hand and with the other hand, I hold onto the pram. People come in and out as if I were hired to be the doorwoman or as if I were invisible. Rarely, someone notices me and keeps the door open so that I can enter as well.

Other times, it happens that I have to stand in line for buying a train ticket, for example. With a 11kg baby in the arms, fighting to escape, I decide to go in front and ask for permission to buy the ticket. Most of the times, people look at me as if I were a strange creature, talking a language they don’t understand. Their facial expression says, “Why don’t you stand in line like the rest of us?”. There is usually one person in the line who shouts, “Let her pass, she has a baby, can’t you see?”

What Do Scientists Tell Us?

I’ve been wondering why do I see so few reflections of compassion in my every day life? Do people feel compassion at all? Or is compassion but a virtue set as an example – never to be attained by humans – in spiritual and religious books? Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, thought of compassion as a “soft-heartedness and should not occur at all among human beings.” (http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/the_compassionate_instinct)

However, recent studies done by psychologists and neuroscientists show that Kant was not right in his judgement. Both the body and the brain seem to be wired so that we respond to other people suffering. Yet, feeling compassion is different from acting as a result of feeling.

Social researcher David DeSteno did an experiment which showed that people have the tendency to help others if they perceive some commonality with the person they decide to help (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/opinion/sunday/the-science-of-compassion.html). He concludes that compassion can be cultivated by changing the way we perceive the people around us: in terms of similarities. DeSteno’s finding confirms the first step to practising compassion recommended by Buddhist teachings:

“I have difficulty seeing any person in the long past who has not been your father, mother, uncle, aunt, sister, master, abbot, guru or guiding figure.” (Dalai Lama, Becoming Enlightened, pp. 166)

My Conclusion

In conclusion, compassion lives in all of us. It is a matter of being aware that it is in us, and to be willing to practice it and cultivate it. Next time when I keep the door open so that people can come in and out of the store, I will be saying out loud, “You’re welcome!”

 

A New Kind of Gratefulness

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At the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013, I have experienced a strong feeling of gratitude for a group of people I have never met but whose sacrifice had a tremendous influence on my destiny. This group of people are the ones who rebelled against the Communist regime in Romania in December 1989. They risked their lives for the right to live in a democratic country.

The protests took place from 16 December to 22 December when unarmed people rioted against the guns, tanks, and anti-terrorist troops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Revolution_of_1989). I don’t know how they must have felt or what must have been the last thoughts in the minds of the protesters who lost their lives during the protests. It took 1104 deaths and 3352 injured protestants to take Ceausescu down.

Starting with that bloody December 1989, Romanian people had the right to freedom of speech and expression. I am one of them and each December, I feel indebted to light a candle for those people who died so that I can have the life that I have now.

Life is such a dynamic network of connections between people. While we focus on our mini universes, there are moments when our actions benefit other person’s life. Our souls are connected at a higher level of existence and in this life, our lives are pieces of a big puzzle of humanity.

At the beginning of a new year, I have my heart full of gratitude for being part of this puzzle of humanity and I hope that one day, my actions are going to bring positive changes into other persons lives. Happy New Year! 🙂

Which Do You Prefer: Kissing or Hugging Your Friends?

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For the last ten years, I have been living in a multicultural environment in which I had to learn new ways to behave with friends. For example, when I meet a friend, I need to remind myself in what country I am so that I adapt the appropriate behaviour: kiss on both cheeks or give a hug around the neck.

The culture in my home country is to kiss friends on both cheeks. When I moved to the country of adoption, of course I started comparing how friends express affection towards one another! Of course, I interpreted the hugging around the neck as a sign of less affection, especially when the person hugging me would keep the rest of the body slightly farther from my body. I longed after kissing on cheeks as a sign of affection towards friends.

Darwin conjectured that kissing is innate in our genes. To date, scientists have not been able to conclude whether kissing is a learned behaviour for affection or whether we kiss out of instinct (Sheril Kirshenbaum, The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us). Hugging may have a similar innate tendency.

Instinctively, our bodies know better that kissing and hugging have health benefits, as the research shows. Hugging seems to increase the levels of oxytocin and reduce blood pressure (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4131508.stm). Women seem to get more health benefits from hugging than men, the research does not tell why. Maybe because women are more needy of affection? Maybe.

Children in particular are in need of affection. According to intelligence researcher Jay Gordon, co-author of “Brighter Baby”, children who receive long hugs each day, are smarter (http://www.ehow.com/about_4572011_what-hug-day.html).

Romantic kissing was proven to relax the brain, reduce stomach and bladder infections, and relieve pain, just to name a few of the benefits (http://www.bestkisses.com/kisses-for-health.html). I could not find any study on what kind of health benefits the kiss on the cheeks has. I would argue that kissing on the cheeks has the psychological benefit of boosting the self-esteem. Isn’t that a wonderful feeling when you are reminded that you have friends who love and respect you?

Taking a closer look at the ‘kiss on the cheek’ culture, with disappointment I came to realise that sometimes the kisses were theatrical. So, the years spent in the multicultural environment, opened my eyes to these two types of non-verbal communication of affection between friends and put an end to my longing after kissing on the cheek. In the end, I guess that both kissing and hugging can convey affection in an equal manner provided the underlying feeling is sincere.

Beyond the cultural norms, showing affection to friends is a question of personal preference. Some may be more comfortable with kissing, others with hugging. Some may prefer both, while others would skip both. It depends on how comfortable each of us is with showing our affection. And as long as we do it from the heart, the health benefits are guaranteed. How many of the hugs and kisses that we receive during one day are sincere? Let’s do the counting in our silent corner, shall we?

BTW Merry Christmas to You! 🙂

How Faithfully Do Words Reflect Our Emotions?

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I love poetry and romance books. One verse in a poem or one sentence in a book would touch me deeply and would keep me company for days, sometimes weeks. When I started writing poems, it took only a few minutes to write a poem down. The process of creation has always been a mystery to me. For example, I would sit in a bus when I felt there was a poem in me waiting to be written. The next thing was to look for a piece of paper and a pen in my bag. Yet, I realised that as much as I love words, they fail to express the intensity of the feelings bubbling deep inside.

To my mind, especially words like love, joy or grievance are weak indications of the state of being of Love, Joy or Grievance. I remember when I met a friend after her father had passed away. I wanted to say something to show that I genuinely sympathised for her loss. Despite all my effort to come up with an empathic sentence, I quickly said the official “Condolences” to her. I knew there was no word invented which could comfort her a tiny bit. Being by her side in silence was the best thing I could do.

Someone told me, “A good poet or writer will always find words to express feelings.” This may be the case, but not all of us are born poets or writers. Common people feel the urge to communicate strong feelings too.

I was reading Eckhart Tolle’s book, “A New Earth“, when I realised that when feeling pure Love, Joy, or Grievance, the most important is to focus on those states of being without assigning any words to them. Those are the rare moments when we truly live – when the mind is quiet and the inner state is “talking”.

Saying “I love you” maybe not need to be said too often. When Love and Joy are felt at the deepest level of our being, they emanate an energy which is felt by the persons whom we truly love.

I will always be in love with words, especially the ones positively charged, and I am aware how important words are in communication (this blog post is one example). Still, in my opinion, our subjective inner lives are by far much richer. Hence, before hurrying up to express how we feel, it is worthwhile to listen in silence to what we feel.

Do You Have Fear of Pain? Tell Me How You Deal With It

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I have always had a terrible fear of physical pain. My pain tolerance went so high that when I would cut my finger, the feeling of the pain combined with the sight of blood would lead to fainting. After giving birth, I congratulated myself for defeating my general fear of pain and the specific fear of labor. I was proud for joining the league of super women who defied the pain and gave birth naturally (thanks God for epidural). I thought that I became stronger.

Few days ago, I saw my dentist. Waiting to be called into the dentist’s office, to my surprise, I started feeling dizzy. I was laying down on the chair of torture with the protection glasses on, when after only few seconds the lenses became blurry and my forehead sweaty. To my bigger surprise, I was terrified of the anticipated pain as much as before giving birth – if not even more.

In 2001, a team of Finnish researchers from the Helsinki University Central Hospital, the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology did a study on the pain tolerance in women with fear of labor and compared it with the pain tolerance in women without fear of labor (should you want to see the elaborate description of how the pain was measured and the study was conducted, please read Saisto et al., 2001). I thought that every woman has fear of labor. I stand corrected. The findings of the study show that all the women, both the fearful and the fearless have a lower pain tolerance during pregnancy than after pregnancy – not my case. Yet, both before and after pregnancy, the women with fear of labor tolerated pain for a shorter period of time compared with the women without fear of labor. In addition, fear of labor may reduce the pain tolerance in some women, and I seem to be one of them.

The findings of the above-mentioned study seem counterintuitive to me. After I managed one of the most excruciating pains, why am I even more afraid when I am anticipating pain?

Strong motivation. That’s the key. During the labor, the thought that I want my baby to come out of me healthy gave me the courage to manage the pain the best I could. During the visit to the dentist, my mind was blocked by fear. So, after getting over the disillusionment that my pain tolerance decreased after giving birth, I figured out that learning how to manage the fear is the most desirable behaviour. What does this mean? It means lots of work with my flimsy mind, which will be put to test during the next visit to the dentist – not any time soon. 🙂

I cooked up my future reaction to the fear of pain. That’s what we need to do when we have fears: plan how to circumvent them. So, what I’ll do first is to accept my fear and communicate it to the dentist. Being a woman, it should be easier to confess that I am afraid. If I were a man, probably I’d skip this first step and go ahead to the next one, which is thinking of something joyful while the dentist will be excavating my teeth (i.e., the smile of my baby or me eating Ben&Jerry’s). Last, I’ll keep on saying to myself that the pain is only temporary. I shall see how my mind will be willing to cooperate!

 

So What If Men Were Happier Than Women?

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We were driving to a friend’s place and I was complaining how much I hate Winter. The frozen and grey landscapes unfolding in front of my eyes stunned me. The thought that this Winter will be around for the next five months horrified me even more. I came up with scenarios of escapes to milder climate. “You pay too much attention to what happens around you,” , my husband said. “Ignore the weather!”

“Men must be happier than women”, I mumbled to my chin. It was a generalisation on the spur of the moment, but it got glued to my mind. I knew I am not the only one who thinks that men are happier. Every woman must think the same at least once in their lifetime. Is it really true that men are the favourites of God? I got curious: how did researchers in psychology and sociology tackle this issue?

The latest results come from research in genetics, which concludes that women may actually be happier than men. Scientists in genetics identified a specific gene, which is correlated with the self-reported happiness of the women which took part in the study (http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/08/28/women-are-happier-than-men-testosterone-to-blame/). The correlation did not exist in sample of men which participated to the study. This specific gene is called monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and it determines how the brain processes dopamine and serotonin, the chemicals which determine our innate level of happiness.

 

Furthermore, the scientists explain that the testosterones prevent men from being happy in the long-run. The older men get, the levels of testosterones increase and cancel the positive effects of the MAOA on men’s mental state.

 

Psychologist Sonja Lyubomisrky says that both men and women have equal chances to become happier, despite the happiness level determined by their genes. In her book, “The How of Happiness“, Sonja Lyubomirsky agrees that both men and women have a genetically determined predisposition towards happiness of 50%. As we become adults, 10% of our happiness is coming from life circumstances, such as income level or marital status – surprisingly little, I may say. We are left with this significant 40% chance to happiness, which is great news from everyone, including the born depressed ones!

 

Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist in collaboration with four psychologists analysed the data of a survey on the happiness of women and men in USA over the last four decades (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/business/worldbusiness/25iht-leonhardt.7636350.html?pagewanted=all). Based on this study, men are happier than women in our modern society. Men are working less and relaxing more. Women have two jobs, one paid and the other one at home, even though they admit cleaning the house is not done as thoroughly as three decades ago. In addition, women have longer to-do lists, which can be stressful if tasks are left undone. For example, women spend 90 minutes more than men on unpleasant activities, such as paying bills.

 

Anke Plagnol, sociologist at Cambridge University and Richard Easterlin, economist at the University of Southern California, compared responses to two surveys – one on aspirations and attainments and the other on satisfaction and happiness (http://www.newscientist.com/blog/shortsharpscience/2008/07/are-men-happier-than-women.html). They concluded that women are happier in the first part of adulthood but in the mid-life there is a change-over in the happiness level. Women become more depressed whereas men are more likely to be more fulfilled and happier, and it all comes down to unfulfilled desires.

 

So, who is happier than who? Women seem to be born with a special gene, which helps them smile throughout life. The testosterone cancels out the effect of this special gene in men, which makes men grumpier as they grow old. Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky and her two colleagues bring good news to both genders by showing that we have the capacity to fight for happiness. Poor or wealthy, married or divorced, healthy or unhealthy, man or woman, we have the power to improve our lives.

 

How can women fight for their happiness despite their spending more time on unpleasant activities or unfulfilled goals? After a certain age, the feeling of fulfilment is the main source of happiness. Maybe life didn’t go exactly as you hoped for – this is valid for both genders. Yet, whenever you feel unfulfilled, take a closer look at your life and you’ll see there is at least one aspect which has meaning. Start from there the way towards happiness and continue it with the change of your mindset.

 

In the end, I guess that men and women are happy in their own way, with the peculiarities in which the nature designed them to have. For example, women are designed to give birth to their babies and men to spread their seeds. Women get to experience the happiness of feeling their baby move inside them. Men get to experience the happiness of impregnating the woman they love (ideally).

 

Women may come from Venus and men from Mars but they live on Earth and they can teach one another some lessons of happiness. For example, women can learn from men how to be more confident in life and relax more. In their turn, it is high time that men learnt that sharing with their spouses the less pleasant activities, like housekeeping, is a simple way to maintain the happiness in their relationship.

 

Finally, life is by far more exciting with all the differences between men and women. No matter who is happier than who, happiness can be contagious, so watch out with whom you are hanging out!