Happiness

Kunci kebahagiaan adalah: a healthy lifestyle, long-term goals, faith, working hours, social participation and your partner's personality. Setujuuuuuuuuu...dg artikel di bawah ini.

Kunci ketidakbahagiaan adalah: prioritising success and material goals. Setujuuuuuuuuuu juga!

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Happiness about life choices, not upbringing

Happiness comes from individual choices about how to live your life rather than genetic or childhood influences.

A neurotic partner and the pursuit of material wealth, on the other hand, are key ingredients for unhappiness.

A 25-year psychological study has contradicted previous theories that long-term adult happiness mainly depends on genetic factors and personality traits formed in childhood.

The new evidence suggests a healthy lifestyle, long-term goals, faith, working hours, social participation and your partner's personality are the principal factors for happiness, The Australian reports.

The findings, published today in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are drawn from yearly interviews with Germans from 1984 to 2008. More than 60,000 people were surveyed.

Co-author Bruce Headey, associate professor at the University of Melbourne's Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, said Australian research showed similar results.

''It appears that prioritising success and material goals is actually harmful to life satisfaction,'' he was quoted as writing in the journal by The Age today.

The newspaper said partner choice played a big role in happiness.

"Women were less happy if their partner did not prioritise family goals than if they had no partner, and people with a neurotic partner were far less happy over time," it reported.

Gert Wagner, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany, also analysed results from the German study.

He told LiveScience: "People with a lot of money are more satisfied with their lives... but mainly due to the more interesting and challenging jobs they have.

"Money is simply a by-product of good and satisfying jobs. If you want to be satisfied with your life, you must spend time with your friends and your family."

Dari news.com.au