Well, I’m not an expert, but I do have a blog (3for365.com), which I invite you to visit.

I really like your site and this post. May I link it? Your entrepreneurial spirit is positively infectious!

Yours in creativity,
Julia

I just found your site, and I’m looking forward to getting to know you. I have done a lot of reading and practicing on the topic of happiness, and I’d like to share with you a bit of what I’ve written:

Happiness vs. Pleasure

What is Happiness to me?

Respectfully,
Michelle Hope

it’s music that stirs my heart,
it’s music that makes me feel whole,
it’s music that lets me dance,
it’s music that speaks when words cannot.

I’m a newcomer here, and I must say I had a very, very good time reading you. I must aknowledge I’ve always felt a bit sceptic about “happiness theorization”, perhaps due to a quite conceited and somehow romantic notion that happiness derived from some kind of magic you could NOT make theories about. If I persist in thinking that life must be considered on a single day basis, as everything can stop anytime for any of us, I tend to believe now that single days can make a whole, when intense moments combine with some kind of serenity. I’m not getting any better on the romantic front, though :o)

So thanx for this highly humanistic, humble and clever vision. And, er, well yes, it’s a compliment :o)

Dopaminergic receptors in the brain respond in beautiful unison to all these impulses. In essence, dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine are the chemicals that make us happy. Nevertheless, as in any brain system, or life in general, happiness can develop a sort of plateau, in which more of that reward is needed to achieve the same degree of satisfaction. This is of course, varies tremendously between individuals. Someone with an addictive personality will be more likely, to develop an addiction to a primer (drugs, sex, extreme sports), that will bring about the same feeling of euphoria.

There was an interesting article I read a few years ago in the New York Times about a study that followed levels of happiness over a period of 2 years. The subjects were people who recently had won the lottery, people who had just lost their vision or limbs due to an accident. Initial levels of happiness were very different. Obviously the people who lost function were very sad at the beginning of the study and people who won the lottery were very happy. However, after 6 months, amazingly, the levels of reported happiness of both groups had become almost the same. People who lost function had learned to cope and appreciate life again, and those who won the lottery, had lost that initial sense of happiness quite precipitously.

For me, watching the whole first season of 24 in one day has made me very, very happy! lol

Giving me compliments will get you anything :)