Are you in pursuit of happiness? Are there people in your life that depress you? Do you wish that someday we'll find an end to wars, school shootings, and like atrocities that stem from someone's unhappiness?
If you're like me, deep down you not only want to know how to be happy but you also want others to be happy so they'll stop dishing out the opposite at you! Maybe this is the secret to why people are buying books on peptides and positive thinking.
For eons, we've studied what makes people happy, working double time and stumbling on the answer to this eternal question. The AIR Equation builds on these studies and gives you a targeted 3-part formula for happiness.
HAPPINESS SURVEY
In 2006, Plus Sign Productions, a research and consulting organization, started a happiness survey project that covered careers, love relationships, dating, friends, family, home life, and childhood. The findings were enlightening.
1. There are 3 factors that significantly impact happiness: Acceptance, Inspiration, and Respect.
2. Together, these factors make an equation that explains 92% of happiness, an accuracy rocket scientists will kill for.
3. Peace and love--trumpeted since the 1960s as sources of happiness--scored too low to be included in the equation.
The AIR Equation was born, an easy-to-recall acronym for the 3 keys to concentrate on in life:
Happiness = 50% Acceptance + 28% Inspiration + 22% Respect
Now you know the formula for happiness, spiritual inner items that don't cost money. And researchers have learned long ago that man-made materialistic items are not significant factors of happiness, so put your checkbook, credit cards, and loan officers away.
AIR EQUATION EXPLAINED
Acceptance: Do you have a need for more tolerance, cooperation, approval, or agreement? Discrimination falls under this factor. Half of one's happiness is based on acceptance--whether it's from others or yourself--making happiness almost impossible without it. Abraham Lincoln had a nice tip on how to fix this: "I destroy my enemy by making him my friend."
Inspiration: Are you yearning for a revelation, elevation, vision, influence, encouragement, muse, genius, or enthusiasm? Expectations and thoughts about your future all affect inspiration. The brighter you believe tomorrow will be, the happier you'll be.
Respect: Does your life lack appreciation, recognition, courtesy, esteem, dignity, ovation, or honor? Many of our institutions value honor. It adds joy to careers, parent-child relationships, and marriages.
This provides a better understanding of what drives protesters into the streets when public figures do or say something that falls into one of these 3 categories. It makes them unhappy! But don't go and prepare cyanide for them. Despite the source of darkness in our lives, you always have the liberty to do good and avoid unhappiness.
Think about Helen Keller who, after accepting her deafness and blindness, traveled all over the earth to inspire millions, garnering respect from the greatest world leaders. Look at Alexandra Scott and the Alex's Lemonade Stand phenomenon this young terminally-ill girl created. From a Roman prison, Saint Paul inspired himself and his free-but-troubled comrades miles away by saying, "In the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world."
APPLY THE AIR EQUATION TO INCREASE HAPPINESS
Give AIR: Giving happiness to others is a great way to get happiness back. This philosophy dates back more than 2,500 years, from Confucius's teachings of helping humanity to modern day Positive Psychology. Milton Hershey, the founder of the great chocolate empire, claimed that, "One is only happy in proportion as he makes others feel happy, and only useful as he contributes his influences for the finer callings in life."
Don't take AIR from others: Since happiness is often a two-way street, don't give in to peer pressure and do something insulting to gain acceptance, or lower others' inspiration to feel better about your own, or bully people to gain respect. I find it amazing how often people do these things, making the other party revengeful and apt to start a war of how unhappy one can make the other.
Those who live life like a monk, believe in Eastern philosophies that encourage solitude, or have strong self-confidence and self-esteem, hardly need AIR from people and can generate it for themselves. Granted, they're not taking AIR from anyone, but they miss out on the reward that comes from helping humanity.
CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Lack happiness with your job, loved ones, friends, and family? Don't stick to the status quo, try something new like the AIR Equation, give instead of take. Albert Einstein once said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Let's stop living by negative quotes such as "Good guys finish last" and "Revenge is a dish best served cold," and inject ourselves with positive ones. Respect people for their strengths, offer inspiration to use them, and accept people for their weaknesses and aid instead of insult their improvement.
SPREAD AIR
Mahatma Gandhi said, "We must become the change we want to see in the world." Let's start a new peace sign for the new millennium--the AIR sign, a symbol for happiness.
Join the cause to spread happiness and read self help advice, stories, and inspirational quotes. Afterwards, you'll probably end your pursuit of happiness successfully, relieved and ready to "Give me some AIR!"
