Martin Seligman is the father of contemporary positive psychology. He was elected president of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1998.
Although he proposed the concept of "learned helplessness", after proposing this concept, he devoted himself to the study of helping ordinary people achieve happiness, and published a series of books in which he proposed three rules for how people can achieve happiness:
The Law of Happiness: The Past Makes It Pass.
He believes that there is no need to stress too much about the importance of childhood, although it has affected our lives in the past, but people can transcend the influence of past experiences, and our present should not be determined by our family of origin or the painful experiences of the past.
How do you get out of the misfortunes of the past?Seligman believes that gratitude and forgiveness can help us.
He proposes gratitude exercises, such as writing a letter of gratitude to someone who has helped you in the past and reading it out into his eyes, which are detailed in his True Happiness.
The Law of Happiness: Misfortune is only temporary, and the future is not as bad as you think.
A smooth sailing life is almost non-existent, and everyone will encounter things that make them uncomfortable and painful. An optimistic person believes that this misfortune is only temporary, while a pessimistic person thus predicts the misfortune of the whole life.
While the factual problems we encounter cannot be changed, our ideas can be changed.
The Law of Happiness: Seize the happiness of the moment.
Happiness is actually a subjective feeling, and happiness in the present moment is a real experience. Putting aside the past and the future, and only talking about the happiness of the present, this feeling is not a simple pleasure or physical satisfaction, but a kind of spiritual satisfaction.
The approach he proposes is to find hobbies that immerse oneself in it, make it worthwhile, and experience lasting happiness in a deep engagement.
The above is the content of today's daily update.
If you are interested in the content, I recommend the book "True Happiness".