Finding Satisfaction

You must learn to look in the right places to manage yourself. For instance, are you stressed because you’re unhappy? Psychology research has isolated five psychological needs as most related to life satisfaction: the need for self-esteem; the need for relatedness; the need for independence and autonomy; the need for competence; the need to make sense out of personal experiences. That last one is interesting. Apparently, we want to have a life that is meaningful and coherent; we need to have reasons to get up in the morning and face life’s struggles and complexities; our efforts must make sense. A life without meaning cannot facilitate happiness. The bottom line is that happiness must be seen in a context of doing things and exerting effort in ways that bring you satisfaction, not in a context of acquiring things. You must evaluate your life with respect to creating, learning, trying, working—all are verbs conveying actions that you enjoy doing and that make you feel useful, worthwhile, and personally alive. Many posessions can make you feel pleasure and be happy for a time, but only your thinking and your behavior can bring you enduring personal satisfaction. Fortunately, you can control your thinking and your behavior, the two things that can bring you satisfaction, and that make stress just another aspect of life that you can enlist in your coping efforts.