Psychology Chronicles Series #3: The Happiness Project | An Introduction To Positive Psychology

"Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy".
_{Anne Frank}

Earlier in school as I was giving my lecture on the five levels of Abraham Maslow's proposed "Hierarchy of Needs" and while I was engrossed in the discussion a student interrupted me and bravely asked:

"Miss,If I could reach the self-actualization stage later in life,will I be at my happiest state?

I stopped for a moment and I was amazed on how the young lad was able to capture my attention by throwing a query that could start a debate in class. I humbly smiled and said:

"That my dear is a question you can only answer."

When the class ended I contemplated on the question blurted by my student. I just couldn't let go of the lingering emotions inside of me that I was brutally affected by his question. As I was growing up I always thought that being an adult could make me happy. I always envy my seniors in school because of their maturity in doing things and their freedom to do the things that they want. And that being an adult could mean I have the chance to achieve what I always wanted in life.Money and more money...

I am already 26 years old, though I give importance to my material posessions I realized that I should give more emphasis to my dying self-esteem & my fading social circles. I always thought that I can only attain happiness if I could buy the things that I always wanted to have. But it slowly sinked in to me that it's not these things that would make me feel happy but its the attention,appreciation acknowledgement that I will get from people important to me if I attained all of these.

And that maybe when I will be standing on the last level on the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid I can finally say to myself that I am happy since I am satisfied by how I lived my life through establishing good relationships towards the people around me.

I am sharing you all of these because I believe that Self-Actualization will always be related with Positive Pyschology. Satisfaction and contentment with one's life and not leaving any traces of regret is greatly associated with positive well being.

Positive Psychology

is the science of happiness. Ever since people started to ask why we are different in our personality and behavior,Psychology is a branch of Social Science that aims to predict,treat and assess abnormal and mental behaviors.Positive Psychology on the other hand gives importance to self-flourishing aspects than mental dysfunction.

Gone were the days that people are only interested on whats not normal and whats deviant. Psychology has a new promising member in the discipline and thats Positive Psychology.

Instead of giving too much emphasis on abnormality, Positive Psychology welcomes the importance of our psychological strengths over our weaknesses.

Martin Seligman in his P.E.R.M.A. model encouraged humanistic perspectives and psychological well being in attaining self-actualization. Positive Psychology gives way for positivity, contentment and elation.

The greatest value in life is to flourish physically,emotionally,spiritually,socially & of course to acquire true happiness. We can only say that our life is fulfilling if we could obtain self-less abundant gratification

I know that Psychology is interesting since it focuses on a wide range of topics like mental disorders,anxiety and depression. We are always interested with the things that we dont know since it sparks curiosity among us but we need to give credit to the goals of Positive Psychology. It is focused on converting our weaknesses into strengths and working on our positive human traits and values to live a good life.

In achieving a meaningful life, let us all build the blocks of happiness. Widening the scope of well-being means a few step closer to authentic and genuine happiness.

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