Want To Be Happy? The Truth About What Generates Your Great Feelings

By Author: Casper Hornstrup
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Have you ever asked yourself this question in a situation where you noticed that you felt good? -- Why am I currently happy? You may not have felt this good right before that. Aren't you the least bit curious about why it did change so suddenly? The reason is easy to understand.

You think of several words during your day. As you go through your day, you are thinking of thousands of such words, you have learned through your whole life -- some of these words are activated when you have your internal chatting with yourself. However, most of the words you are thinking of during your day are those that are activated when you experience certain things, you can associate to those words. For instance, you see a bike, and then you think of the word bike. You are not even aware that you are thinking of most of these words as you experience your day.

You have associated the words you know to each other. For instance, when you see a bike and then think of the word bike, you might also think of the word light because most likely you have been told by your parents to remember to turn the lights on when you are driving your bike ...
... at night. Oh, there was another word, you may have associated to the word bike - driving. You have millions of such associations. You are so exceptionally good at this word association game - you should win a prize for this.

You have associated a feeling to each of these words. Not only have you associated the words you have learned previously in your life, you also assign a particular feeling to each of them. I won't go into what determines if this is to be a bad or a good feeling in this article, but for now just know that it can be bad, good and anything in between. When you think of the words you know, you will feel a combination of the feelings that you have associated to these words.

However, just thinking of one word, you have associated a bad feeling to, is enough to ruin your great state that is caused by the words you are thinking of and have associated good feelings to. Fortunately, you can easily relearn the feeling you have associated to such a word.

Next time you notice you feel good, try asking yourself this question: Why am I currently happy? You might find a word, you like very much. Think of that word more often then ;-)
Copyright © 2009 Casper Hornstrup -- You have permission to reprint verbatim copies of this article.



Casper Hornstrup has been researching the subject of happiness and its relation to choice of behavior in safe situations since 2006.



Take The Happy Test for a word or Turn Bad Feelings Into Good -- Read His E-book.