The Happiness Advantage
We chase happiness for its own sake – it feels good and makes us feel that life is worth living. But there are in fact multiple fringe benefits to living a life of joy. Recently, researchers have been studying the happiness advantages, and they have learned some fascinating facts.
Happy people show more flexibility and ingenuity in their thinking and are more productive in their jobs. The fascinating and now classic “Nun Study” shows a link between happiness and longevity. Other studies are showing happiness leads to better health and good relationships.
Chassidic and Kabbalistic literature offers a perspective as to why happiness leads to these advantages.
In chapter 26 of his Tanya, the Alter rebbe explains how joy is a prerequisite for self-mastery which might explain why joy is a prerequisite to success:
“This should be made as a cardinal principle: The internal spiritual battle waged against one’s negative impulses is similar to a physical wrestling match. If tow individuals are wrestling with each other. Each striving to fell the other, but ones is lazy and lethargic, he will fall and be easily defeated, even if he is stronger than his opponent.
The same applies regarding the conquest of one’s impulses: it is impossible to defeat them from a state of laziness and heaviness, which stem from sadness and a dull heart, but only from a state of brisk enthusiasm, which derives from happiness and a heart free from any trace of worry and sadness in the world. “
If we want to be successful in staying on our diets, want to be successful in controlling our minds from negative thinking, or any other area of self-mastery, happiness gives a decisive edge.
The Nature of Joy
Chassidic philosophy explains the reason for this:
Happiness is synonymous with life itself. “Life” is the person expressing their potential. Sadness, which is a person’s withdrawal from self-expression, is thus anti-life. Happy people are often described as “full of life,” while a sad person would be described as “dead inside.”
This is why happy people are more successful in many areas of life.
Self-mastery is required for a good marriage, health, holding a job, problem solving, and many other things, and happiness is a requirement for self-mastery. Also, Joy, in itself, expresses and exposes our talents and abilities, this helps us in all the above mentioned areas in life.
This post is is taken from the JLI course How Happiness Thinks, given by Velly in Chabad Malvern.