What do you think are the main determinants of someones happiness or satisfaction with life?

I believe that it all comes down to one's attitude and one's decision to either be happy or not to be happy. Since no other person can provide happiness for us, then we accept that we are captain of our own ship. One has to have realistic expectations to begin with and has to participate in life. I think that your satisfaction is in proportion to your efforts.

What do you think are the main determinants of someones happiness or satisfaction with life?
Internal ownership
Reply:Self esteem and confidence.
Reply:I think that it is how you feel about yourself and how you look at life. I also think it is how people treat you b/c if people r mean to you then you don't have a good out look on life and you are depressed all the time.
Reply:i think you have to like yourself and the person you are thats key
Reply:Their capacity to love others and be loved by others.
Reply:*Please Patiently read this, it may help some in the answer to your question. Thank You.*





What in the world is the difference between loving a person, and being selfishly attached to them? Love is the sincere wish, for others to be happy and to be free from suffering. Having realistically realized other’s kindness, as well as their faults, Love is Always focused on the other person’s welfare. We have no ulterior intensions or motives to fulfill our own self-interests; or to fulfill our own desires, we love others, all people, simply because they exist. Attachment, on the other hand, exaggerates others’ good qualities, and makes us crave to be with them. When we’re with them, we are happy, but when we’re separated from them, we’re miserable. Attachments are always linked with expectations of what others should be, or what they should do for us. Is love, as it is understood in most societies, really love OR attachment ? Let us examine this a little more. Generally speaking, we are attracted {drawn to) people because they have qualities we value, or because they help us in some way. If we carefully observe, through introspection, our own thought processes we’ll notice that we very often look for specific qualities in others. Some of these qualities we are drawn to are qualities within our parents, or qualities which society values.


We examine someone’s looks, education, social status, financial status, and so forth. This is how Most of us decide on whether or not the person holds any true value, or not. In addition, we judge people as worthwhile according to how they relate to us. If they praise us, encourage us, help us, if they listen to what we have to say, if they make us feel secure, if they take care of us when were sick, unhappy or depressed, we consider them good, or sometimes righteous people, and these are the people we more drawn to, whom we are most likely attracted to, and the people we choose to be around with.


In all honesty, this is very biased, for we are judging them, only in terms of how they relate to us, as if we are the most important person in the world %26amp; thinking the world revolves around us! After we’ve judged certain people to be good for us, whenever we see them, it appears to us as if goodness is radiating out from within them, but as we are more mindfully aware, we realize that we have projected this goodness on to them.


Desiring to be the people who make us feel good, we become emotional yo-yo’s, when we’re with these people, we’re up, but when we’re not with them, we’re down. Furthermore, we form fixed concepts of what our relationships with these people will be, and thus have expectations of them. “When they do not live up to our expectations of them, we’re unhappy, disappointed or may even become angry. We want them to change so that they will match what we think they are. But our projections and expectations come from our own minds, not from other people. Our problems arise not because others aren’t who we thought they were, but because we mistakenly thought they were something they were not. We often use a type of Checklist also. Checklist: “I Love You IF ___________ !” This Love is Conditional and what we call love, is most often attachment. It is actually an attitude which overestimates the qualities of another person.


’Then we cling tightly to that person, thinking our peace and happiness depends on that person. We even often blame that person for our unhappiness.’ Love, on the other hand, is a very patient, calm, optimistic and relaxed attitude. We want others to be free from suffering and to be happy simply because they exist. While attachments are uncontrolled, and too emotionally sentimental, Love is Patient, powerful, and controlled(disciplined). Attachment obscures our judgment {our ability to make sound, wise decisions), and we become impatient, angry, and impartial – helping our dear ones, and those who do us no harm. Love clarifies our mind, %26amp; we access a situation by thinking of the greatest good for everyone. Attachment is based on selfishness, while love is founded on valuing, %26amp; cherishing others, even those who do not look very appealing to us. Love always looks beyond all the superficial appearances and dwells on the fact that they are just like us: they want peace of mind, happiness, and wish to avoid suffering. If we see an unattractive, or unintelligent people we most often feel repulsed, because our selfish minds want to find attractive, intelligent, and talented people. On the other hand, Love never evaluates others by theses superficial standards and looks much deeper into the person. Love recognizes that regardless of the others appearances, they’re experiences are they same as ours: they want inner mental peace, happiness, and wish to be from suffering. When we’re attached, we’re not mentally, emotionally, %26amp; spiritually free. For we overly depend on, and cling to another person, to fulfill our emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. We fear losing the person, fearing that we’d be incomplete without them.” This does Not mean that we should suppress all our emotional needs, or become aloof, and totally independent, for that too would not solve the problem. We must simply realize our unrealistic needs and slowly, gently and patiently – seek to eliminate them. If we try to suppress them, pretending they do not exist, we become insecure, anxious, or possibly depressed. In this case, we do our best to fulfill our needs, while simultaneously working gradually to subdue them. The core problem is that most of us seek to be loved, rather than to love. We yearn to be understood by others, rather than to understand them. Our sense of emotional insecurities comes from the selfish obscuring of our own minds. We develop confidence by recognizing our inner potential to become a Selfless human being, having many magnificent qualities, and then we’ll develop and have an accurate perception of ourselves, gaining self-confidence. We’ll seek to increase true unconditional love, to increase compassion, to cultivate patience, as well as generosity, right concentration and wisdom. Under the influence of attachment, we’re bound by our unstable emotional reactions to others. When they’re nice to us, we’re happy, but when they ignore us or speak sharply to us, we take it personally, and are unhappy. But pacifying attachment doesn’t mean we become hard-hearted, rather without attachments, there will be space in our hearts and minds for genuine affection and impartial love for them. And as a result, we’ll be more actively involved with them. As we learn to transform our minds %26amp; lives, through subduing our attachments, we can definitely have successful friendships, and personal relationships with others. These relationships will be richer, more meaningful because of the freedom and respect the relationships are based on. We’ll really care about the happiness and misery of all human beings equally, simply because everyone is the same inside: we all want inner peace of mind, Happiness, and to be from suffering.


However, of course, our lifestyles and interests may be a bit more compatible with some people. Our friendships and our personal relationships will be based on mutual interests, and to help other people. Having such an attitude, we’ll be much More Patient, %26amp; tolerant toward others; will remain mentally calm, having Peace of Mind and Happiness, and we’ll communicate successfully with others in life.
Reply:In this case, i am god damn agree with Dr. Freud!! I suggest you check his ideas out!!
Reply:Simply taking full responsibility for your life, emotions and perceptions instead of relying on others or events or things to fill in your legacy for you. We're either blamers of our destinies or owners of them.
Reply:happiness and satisfaction are in your heart .......





don't even think to search outside .... all are inside your heart and mind.... work from inside in your personality and try to put a goal to your life ... think always positive and give love and care to people who are around you.... sometimes people needs from you just a simple smile...... and in the end you will reach peace happiness and satisfaction.
Reply:Genes play an important part,probably decisive.
Reply:I would have to say your outlook on life helps determine how you feel about your life, most of the time. I am optimistic and I have a friend that is very pessimistic. At the moment our lives are very similar (both in debt and struggling, and both dissatisfied with our jobs, both in new relationships). She often tells me she wishes her life was like mine, because I a happier then her, The difference between us is only that I focus on the new relationship and try to change the bad. I am in the processes of changing jobs, where I might be happier and I will make more money. She will not follow suit, because she is afraid she will not like the new job, so she choose to stay unhappy by not taking the chance. By the way I am only changing jobs within my company, so I can easily go back to were I came from if I am not happy. In the short my optimism is allowing me to try something new, while her pessimism is holding her back.


Also years ago I read that they have done a study on pessimist, where they had some volunteers look at the brighter side of their situation and others be pessimist. They found that those that used optimism were generally more happy with life.
Reply:Money.
Reply:Some of the determinants of one's happiness are one's points of references, belief %26amp; value system, aspiration, peer pressure (or the lack of it), etc.

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