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Are you in pursuit of happiness? Are there people in your life who depress you? Do you wish that someday we’ll find an end to wars, school shootings, and other atrocities that stem from 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! Maybe this is the secret to why people are buying books on positive thinking.
For eons, we’ve studied what makes people happy, 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 personal development and coaching organization, started a happiness survey project that covered careers, love relationships, dating, friends, family, home life, and childhood. The findings:
1. There are 3 things 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, a rule-of-thumb 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 materialistic items are not significant factors of happiness, so put your checkbooks, 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 virtually 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, encouragement, or enthusiasm? Expectations and thoughts about your future affect inspiration. The brighter you believe tomorrow will be, the happier you’ll be.
Respect:Does your life lack appreciation, recognition, courtesy, esteem, dignity, or honor? Many of our institutions value honor. It adds joy to careers, parent-child relationships, and marriages. Bono--activist, U2 band leader, and Liberty Award winner for DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa)--said, "To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater."
APPLY THE AIR EQUATION
Use the AIR Equation to prioritize your pursuit of happiness (or your help with someone else’s). Here are some tips.
Acceptance:This factor comes first. Your greatest source of acceptance should be yourself. Don’t dwell on your negatives or unacceptance, but rather focus on your positive strengths. Don’t judge others or yourself. As social animals, humans tend to herd in their reaction to things. When they herd around negatives, rise above this animal nature.
Inspiration:Surround yourself with people who add inspiration to your life and reduce time with people who don’t. Join groups with people who share your interests. Dream. Then set goals to achieve that dream. You’ll feel better about your future when you’re working toward something positive and rewarding.
Respect:Be proud of yourself. Again, focus on the positive things about you that most people don’t have like degrees, awards, and abilities. Let these credentials be known. Carry yourself as one worthy of respect. Treat others with respect. If you become known for this, they’ll come to your defense when your own respect is threatened.
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, founder of the namesake 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: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. It makes the other party revengeful. Happiness is often a two-way street.
SPREAD AIR
Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” According to Mahatma Gandhi, “We must become the change we want to see in the world.” Start a new peace sign for the new millennium--AIR, a symbol for happiness. Join the cause. After a while, you’ll probably end your pursuit of happiness successfully, relieved and ready to “Give me some AIR!”
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