Happiness is good for the soul

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/08/2018 (2905 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If the corners of your mouth are turning upwards and you’re experiencing a warm and fuzzy feeling in the area where you believe your heart is located, I think I can explain why.

It’s possibly because you’re having bacon for breakfast, but it’s more likely due to the fact that today, Aug. 8, is National Happiness Happens Day, the day on which normally morose human beings are invited to recognize their happy moments and think about happiness in their daily lives.

National Happiness Happens Day is observed each year on this day, according to the website nationaldaycalendar.com. Therefore, on this day each year, just let it happen.

“Happiness is encouraged all day. Recognize every moment of glee, joy, delight and pleasure,” the website says.

“Don’t let it pass. Most importantly, a flicker of a giggle should be given its due, and should it blossom into full-blown happiness, don’t be surprised. It happens!”

Q: Do you feel happier already?

A: No, probably not, because nothing is less likely to make you happy than someone ordering you to feel happy.

It turns out National Happiness Happens Day was launched in 1999 in Irving, Texas, by a woman named Pamela Gail Johnson, the founder of a group known as (dramatic pause) the Secret Society of Happy People, which urges people to share their happiness despite opposition from surly curmudgeons with newspaper columns.

The society shot to fame when it publicly criticized famed advice columnist Ann Landers for discouraging readers from writing happy holiday newsletters to enclose in their happy holiday cards, a grassroots campaign that apparently caused Landers to change her mind on the issue, which probably didn’t make her happy.

The point is, if you are going to take part in this cheesy day, then you are going to have to make a sincere effort to be happy and share your unfettered joy with those around you, many of whom will think you are clinically insane.

From a personal perspective, I am happy almost every day, even if it is not a day set aside for official happiness, largely because, as my parents used to inform me, I am not the brightest light on the Christmas tree and/or the sharpest knife in the drawer, if you catch my drift.

The smallest things can make me unreasonably happy. For instance, if I am driving to work and I spot someone walking a puppy, suddenly and without warning, I will begin to feel much happier.

“Look,” my perky brain will tell the rest of my gloomy body, “there’s a cute puppy. You like puppies, right? Maybe you should smile because a world with puppies in it can’t be all bad.”

Speaking of puppies, I am happy (really) to inform you that a recent study in Britain has just revealed that owning a pet dramatically increases your

chances of being happy.

Q: Wow! Is that a shocking scientific finding, or what?

A: No, in fact, it would have been shocking if scientists had determined that owning a pet increased the odds of you becoming a serial killer.

According to a story in the Independent newspaper in Britain, experts polled 1,000 dog and cat owners over the age of 55, and 1,000 adults of the same age without a pet, and found those with canine and feline companionship were twice as likely to consider themselves a success.

“In addition, pet owners are more likely to be married, have a child, bag themselves a university degree and have found their perfect job,” the story said.

“Pet owners also do almost double the amount of exercise — raising their heart rate five times a week compared to just three times for non-pet owners — and nine in 10 owners believe their pet is good for their health and well-being.”

So it is possible I am a happy person because my household currently includes three dogs, all of whom think it is their democratic right to have their gastrointestinal systems go into reverse-thruster mode on the living room carpet, and sleep in our bed at night. I rarely sleep because the dogs routinely thrust their cold noses into my medically sensitive areas when I am trying to nod off, not that I am complaining.

So, yes, pets do increase our sense of happiness, but that is not the only thing that causes us humans to become upbeat. Music also has a powerful impact on our mood in the sense it can (please try not to become violently ill when you read this next bit) turn a frown upside down.

It is impossible to feel sad when you are listening to certain songs on the radio. For instance, I always find myself becoming gleeful whenever I hear the theme song for the 1970s TV sitcom The Partridge Family, wherein the plucky cast would sing:

“Hello, world, hear the song that we’re singin’. C’mon get happy! A whole lot of loving is what we’ll be bringing. We’ll make you happy! We’ll make you happy! We’ll make you happy!”

See how much happier you are now than before you read those inane lyrics.

That said, the thing that brings us the most happiness is the fact we are kind-hearted Canadians, unlike the sad people in the country to our south.

According to the annual World Happiness Report, Canada was listed as the seventh-happiest country in the world this year, just as we were in 2017.

The happiest country?

That was Finland, which bumped last year’s winner, Norway, into second place, followed by Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland.

In contrast, the United States ranked No. 18 — falling four spots from last year and five from two years ago — “in part because of the ongoing epidemics of obesity, substance abuse and untreated depression,” the report noted.

Why are we so much happier than our southern neighbours?

Well, maybe it’s because we don’t have to worry that our divisive leader is a raving lunatic with a ridiculous haircut who appears to be dragging civilization to the abyss one tweet at a time.

On the other hand, it could simply be the fact we just simply really like puppies.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca