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Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister, Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church

Since about the turn of the century, there's been a growing interest in what's become known as positive psychology. Martin Seligman is the father of this movement.

Sometimes it's called the happiness movement. In Australia, there's even a Happiness Institute (www.thehappinessinstitute.com), and the study of happiness is quite a serious endeavour. For instance, The Happiness Institute (on their web site) says the following:

. Optimistic people are much less likely to die of heart attacks than pessimists, controlling for all known physical risk factors

. Women who display genuine smiles to the photographer at age 18 go on to have fewer divorces and more marital satisfaction than those who display fake smiles

. Externals (weather, money, health, marriage and religion, for instance) totalled together account for no more than 15 per cent of the variance in life satisfaction

. The pursuit of meaning and engagement are much more predictive of life satisfaction than the pursuit of pleasure

. Economically flourishing corporate teams have a ratio of at least three to one of positive statements to negative statements in business meetings, whereas stagnating teams have a much lower ratio; flourishing marriages, however, require a ratio of at least five to one

. Self-discipline is twice as good a predictor of high school grades as IQ

. Learning optimism at ages 10-12 halves the rate of depression as these school children go through puberty

. Happy teenagers go on to earn substantially more income 15 years later than less happy teenagers, equating for income, grades, and other obvious factors

. How you respond to good events that happen to your spouse is a better predictor of future love and commitment than how you respond to bad events

What's important to note about these "Tips on happiness" is they are much more than that. Tips often belong in the realm of pop psychology--this list is about life and involves making choices in attitudes and lifestyle.

Happiness is more about choices than about circumstances.

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