“(…) It turns out that each of us has our own set range for happiness, which is largely inherited—and there’s a study of lottery winners showing that after the initial elation of winning, they eventually revert back to their baseline happiness level. In fact, good fortune is no guarantee of happiness. You get used to your level of wealth and health, and even major events—like being fired or promoted—lose their impact on happiness in a matter of months.
In contrast, when you identify your highest strengths and virtues, the things you’re best at—and then you do the tricks of recrafting love and work and parenting and play to use them more—you create lasting happiness. So the whole point of positive psychology interventions that they are not only self-maintaining, but they snowball in a positive direction. That’s because you really have to do it yourself, it’s a discovery within you. It’s not doing something external. It’s finding what you’re really best at and doing it more. (…)
~ Dr. Martin Seligman, psicólogo, em The Psychology of Real Happiness
Psychology of Real Happiness
