True happiness must have an ingredient in making others happy.
Professor Seligman calls this part the meaning of life.
In my opinion, people in the world can be divided into the following levels:
First, it is not beneficial to harm others and oneself
People who know that it is not good for others or themselves, but continue to do it, and often lose control. This is the kind of person who is usually held in prison.
Second, it is beneficial to harm others and benefit oneself
Unscrupulous means for one's own benefit, even to the detriment of the interests, health and lives of others. However, the sky net is magnificent, negligent but not leaky, and those who harm others will inevitably hurt themselves, but sooner or later.
Third, do not harm others and benefit yourself
Fight for yourself, but have a bottom line and don't harm the interests of others. This kind of person is always lonely, lonely and lonely, because it is difficult to achieve much by working alone. From ancient times to the present, cooperation is king, and no one can achieve everything on their own.
Fourth, benefit others and oneself
When working with others, be able to always consider and pay attention to the feelings and interests of others. Think about it, are you willing to work with someone who thinks about your feelings and interests? And human nature has one thing in common, that is, you don't want to owe others.
Fifth, do not care about self-interest and others
This is the highest state of human beings. For the sake of the common good, safety, health, and happiness, without regard for their own interests, even at the risk of their own lives, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa.
It's not easy to reach level five, but it's not difficult to reach level four.
In fact, the highest level of self-interest in the world is to help others.
In her book How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky, an American expert in happiness studies, describes an experiment in which a group of experimenters followed the following instructions for doing good deeds:
In our daily lives, we will have good deeds.
These acts of kindness can be big or small.
The beneficiary may or may not feel it.
For example, helping strangers pay for parking, donating blood, helping friends with homework, visiting the elderly, writing thank-you notes.
In the coming week, you will do five good deeds.
Don't do good to just one person, the beneficiary knows it or not, and your good deeds don't have to be limited to the ones listed above.
Also, don't do anything that is dangerous to you.
The results of the experiment found that helping others can significantly improve one's own happiness. Why?
1. Because helping others can affect or change your understanding of yourself, make you feel that you are a helpful and compassionate person, and then become more confident and optimistic, enhance your sense of self-worth, and also give yourself the opportunity to increase resources and improve professional ability.
2. Those who help others are very likeable. Because of helping others, you will be praised, affirmed, and recognized. And being recognized is the greatest need of human beings in addition to the need for security, and for people who do not lack a sense of security, this is the first need of people.
I remember that when I was about to graduate from psychology in the United States, I started looking for a job, because I had a high degree and was a foreigner, so I submitted countless resumes, but there was no response.
Later, while continuing to submit my resume, I signed up to volunteer at the crisis intervention hotline.
During my volunteer work, I learned how to help people with extreme emotions, loss of control, and suicidal thoughts to stabilize their emotions and turn the situation around, which made me able to deal with such situations calmly and calmly when I encountered them later, which really benefited me a lot.
Not only that, but the director of the crisis intervention center recommended me to the CEO of Centerstone, the largest community mental health center in the United States.
I was quickly assigned an interview and was hired on the spot, after I had sent my resume to different departments several times, all of which were in vain.
After the Wenchuan earthquake, as the chief clinical supervisor of the "5.12 Spiritual Watch Program" of the China Youth Development Foundation, I went to Wenchuan with the volunteer team, my wife and my daughter to do psychological assistance.
Many people think that it must be very difficult and I have suffered a lot to bring my daughter, who grew up in the United States and is less than 10 years old, to the earthquake-stricken area under the circumstances of frequent aftershocks and the possibility of an epidemic after the flood may break out at any time, and to face the cries of many people who have lost their homes and loved ones every day.
I feel that the three years of rescue in Wenchuan have been the three years of my life and profession, growth and harvest. It wasn't me who helped the people in the disaster area, it was they who helped me.
I remember that there was an eldest sister in her 60s from Beichuan who lost her house, her lover, and her favorite granddaughter in the earthquake.
She lay on the ground of the Kyushu Gymnasium in Mianyang, Sichuan, a makeshift shelter, waiting for the next aftershocks to take her out of this world forever, but none of them were big enough to take her away.
I asked her, "What are you best at?"
She said proudly, planting lettuce shoots and feeding pigs.
Her lettuce shoots grew thick and big, and the pigs were white and fat, and the neighbors were very envious of her. But Kitagawa has been razed to the ground, her village is gone, her skills will be useless, and she is in a deep hopelessness.
After lying down for a few days and feeling bored, I got up and walked around, and saw that the volunteers were cutting the hair of the victims, and they were very busy, and they didn't care about cleaning up the hair on the ground.
But there are few barbers and many people who need haircuts, so the barber told her to try cutting her hair, and she tried it, and it was okay. So he became a volunteer barber for the victims.
I asked her, "What will happen in the future?"
She said:
"I heard that many of the victims from Beichuan will be living in resettlement sites in the future.
Where there are people, you need to cut your hair, and I am going to open a barber shop, and I will take two yuan and I will take one, and I will take one and I will collect five cents, and I will definitely live. ”
As I said this, I saw that her eyes were full of hope for the future.
The company of many survivors of disasters who have experienced life and death has shown me what trauma is, what it means to face it in a real way, what it means to be tenacious in human nature, what it means to be optimistic, what it means to live after death, and what it means to despair and hope.
In the days that accompanied them, my life was tempered and baptized, and for the first time, I really knew how to accompany a person to let go of sadness and fear and regain hope in life.
After three years of Wenchuan rescue, the biggest beneficiary is myself.
There are many people who say that helping others is something that rich people do;
Others will say, "I really want to help others, but I can't find the opportunity." ”
Think about it, there are more than 7 billion people in this world, and the people we meet are actually very limited, including passers-by. Every encounter between people is our fate to help others and ourselves.
As long as you pay attention, you can do things that are helpful to others every day, and things that are helpful to others in life are not necessarily very big:
Such as kind eyes and smiles;
For example, when you get on the elevator, wait for the person behind you;
For example, when squeezing the car, let the anxious person get on the ...... first
When helping others, they will unconsciously improve their abilities, awareness, and cultivation, and the road will become wider and wider, and their lives will become stronger and stronger.
Life is an experience, an experience that blooms and enriches oneself.
You are most likely to feel abundant, fulfilling, and lasting happiness in the experience of improving yourself and helping others.
According to the duration of happiness, we classify happiness and career success as "short-term happiness" or "immediate happiness".
In other words, once such a sense of happiness is obtained, it begins to "depreciate".
Doing what you love and are good at, having stable intimate relationships and helping others is classified as "long-term happiness" or "sustained happiness."
Happiness isn't just about getting the people you want, the things you want, the environment you want.
Happiness is more of an ability, the ability to let go of the past, worry less about the future, and feel the present, and the ability to learn to live peacefully with all unsatisfactory and painful things, because life is unsatisfactory nine times out of ten.
Life is very short, and time is the only thing that cannot be replaced, cannot be bought, and cannot be repeated.
And this thing is our life, and the best way for us to really make good use of this time is to know first:
- What exactly do you want?
- What enables you to feel true happiness?
- What hinders your happiness?