Searching for modern

person’s happiness substance

or
to be or not to be happy?!

Dr.paed., JVLMA as.professor Dace Medne

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Are people happy
in Malta?

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World Happiness Report 2018
(2015 -2017)
https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf

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How happy people
are in China?

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World Happiness Report 2018 (2015 -
2017)
https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf

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How happy people
are in Latvia?

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World Happiness Report 2018 (2015 -2017)
https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2018/WHR_web.pdf

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 Problem
Prevailing hysteria of happiness that
spreads today (Schmid, 2007).
All people are created for happiness
(Spivakovskaya, 2010).

Happiness for people is a blurry

or very specific idea that is often
unreal (Козлов, 2000).
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=laime

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 Problem
• Majority of modern people seek for
happiness and meaning of life in
various new religions and
philosophies, therefore relying
on a miracle or intervention of
higher power. (Seligman, 2007).

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 Problem
• The question of meaning is an issue
that increasingly employs modern
people. However, many prefer
to talk about happiness,
because it is a commonly used
word and everyone seems to
understand it. (Schmid, 2007).

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 What is happiness?
Ordinary assumptions
• Happiness is nothing more than
a word, thus volatile sound (Schmid, 2007).
• Happiness is a miracle, secret
and unsolvable puzzle, it
can’t be bought or sold (Спиваковская,
2010).

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 Happiness in the context of life
(Schmid, 2007)
• Accidental happiness
◦ historically any accidental outcome, not
only in a positive sense
◦ in modern times such kind of
happiness is more closely connected to
positive coincidence (positive outcome
has to be even in the worst case scenario)
◦ who implements this "fateful" coincidence?
◦ it is not said, that accidental happiness will
automatically improve life
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Happiness in the context of life
(Schmid, 2007)

• Comfort happiness
◦ maximization of pleasure and
minimization of pain, better elimination
◦ The moments that allow you to
seek and find yourself are so
beautiful that they need to stay
◦ this happiness is "doable" if it does not
occur by itself

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Happiness in the context of life
(Schmid, 2007)

• Comfort happiness
◦ risk – maximization of pleasure is
counterproductive
◦ seeking for happiness in long
lasting pleasure is the safest
way to unhappiness
◦ the greatest problem of comfort
happiness is too high expectations

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 Happiness in the context of life
(Schmid, 2007)

• Comfort happiness
◦ Pain must disappear from human life
◦ The pain is the driving force
behind the reconsideration of
your life, it causes concerns that
are able to put your self back on
the road again. Pleasures can't do that.
◦ The lack of happiness in modernism
is a disease to be treated.
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 Happiness in the context of life
(Schmid, 2007)

• Fulfillment happiness
◦ We do not choose whichever
pleasure ... we do not avoid all pains
Epicurus

◦ Fulfilled life is similar to breathing

between the poles of positive
and negative
◦ Everything can be positive, however
there are also negative things that
do not disappear Page 16
Happiness in the context of life
(Schmid, 2007)

• Distress happiness
◦ situational mourning related to
some pain that can be soothed
◦ non-specific mourning that is
consistent with world’s pain
that doesn’t know the comfort
◦ anticipation that everything that people
create is fragile, how tiny the human
existence can be
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Happiness as Leadership
of Your Life (Spivakovskaya , 2010)
• Happiness is an internal entirety and
completeness of experiences, it has
the ability to deeply and truly feel
oneself and the surrounding world,
true joy and sometimes
the ecstasy of being - being alive.
• Happiness is the result of self-
understanding.
• Happiness is the art of life.
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 Three types of happiness
(Seligman, 2007)

• Live full of pleasures (sex,

drugs and rock-n-roll)
• Exciding life full of events,
without boredom
• Life filled with meaning

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Page 20
 Formula of happiness
(Seligman, 2007)

Level of Level of Living Human-related

stable and = inherited + conditions + factors
long lasting happiness
happiness

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 Flow theory
(Csikszentmihalyi, 2013)

Happiness is not something that

happens to us, it not the result of
luck or happy coincidence.
Happiness is a state that
everybody should prepare for,
improve upon and maintain.

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 Flow theory
Satisfaction and skill to live joy
(Csikszentmihalyi, 2013)

Satisfaction can be gained

without investing psychic
energy
Joy may be achieved only by
investing psychic energy

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 Flow theory
(Csikszentmihalyi, 2013)

• The flow is a subjective

psychological condition that arises
from the passion for something,
and is characterized by a sense
of inner satisfaction that
encourages to continue this activity.

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 Flow four-chanel model
challenge high

  excitement
anxiety Flow
 

Skills low wories control Skills high

apathy Relaxation
boredom

Challenge low Page 25

The Bucket List (2007)

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• Why do you think life should bring joy?
• Why do you think one person's life
should bring joy to another person’s
life?
• What do you think is the reason
that life does not bring joy
to people?
• What do you think is the reason that
persons’ lives do not bring joy to other
people?

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