Importance Of Happy Memories
How Happy Memories Can Keep You Positive
Moments Of Happiness
When life becomes an illusion,
When time seems meaningless.
Oh, then you realize the beauty,
Of moments that fly by, careless.When feelings become so pure,
When your heart cries with love.
And life seems so incredible,
That all pain recedes to joy.Oh, hold them in your memories,
Hold them by your heart and soul.
For they are the secret ingredients,
Of a happy and joyous life.
Do you find yourself getting stuck in sad thoughts at times?
Do extended periods of depression hurt your happiness?
Are there days when you find yourself feeling hopeless?
Happy Memories: Secret To A Happy Life
“When the going gets tough, the tough get nostalgic.” — Markham Heid.
The secret to happiness in life is happy memories. As we live our lives, we assimilate different experiences and memories. Some of these memories are sad, while others are happy. To remain happy and peaceful, we must focus on positive and happy memories. They bring energy to your life. They bring confidence to your life. They help you go through challenging situations in life.
Happy Memories And Science
For a 2017 study (Articles, 17) in the journal Nature Human Behavior, scientists observed people keep a hand submerged in ice water. Immediately afterward, the subjects were instructed to recall either happy or neutral memories. Those who recalled neutral memories observed that their cortisol (a hormone that indicates stress in the human body) rose steadily. In contrast, those who recalled happy memories had a steady cortisol level.
A 2019 study (Articles, 18) from the University of Cambridge in England found that remembering pleasant events in detail is associated with lower cortisol levels. “We were interested in resilience, or why certain people do not develop depressive symptoms after stressful life events,” says Adrian Askelund, the first author of the study. “We found that those who recalled more specific positive events from their past had better mental health even after major stressors.”
Conclusive research says people with depression are more likely to recall negative memories than positive ones. The study also says depressed people tend to remember unhappy times much more negatively than happy ones. It leads to a theory of depression — known as “competitive memory theory.” It says that each of us has access to “self-representations” and that we can remember both positive and negative memories from the past. Over time, our negative memories strengthen, while the positive memories become weak. To lead a happy and positive life, we should revisit the positive memories as often as possible.
Techniques For Creating Happy Memories
This section discusses three techniques that will help you create happy memories and revisit them later.
Celebrate small successes
In any endeavor, you will go through many ups and downs. In general, there are more failures, and successes are few and far between. To keep yourself motivated and fight the negativity of your mind, it is necessary to celebrate every small success that you get in your way. To find success, it is essential to be courageous in life. Successes are a reminder that you are on the right path. They are proof that you are doing meaningful work. They are a sign of progress. The power of progress is fundamental to human nature, but very few of us understand it deeply. By celebrating small successes, we create positive, powerful memories that we can revisit later during the days of our struggle. These can be celebrations of both personal and professional milestones.
Turn negative experiences into positive ones.
One of the most potent ways of dealing with negative emotions is to translate them into positive ones.
“Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Every failure that happens with us can be an opportunity for success. Even within a loss, there are many hidden successes. It is necessary to remain positive in life, even during the most trying circumstances.
Post-Traumatic Growth
Post-traumatic growth (PTG) is a theory that explains this kind of transformation following trauma. It was developed by psychologists Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D., and Lawrence Calhoun, Ph.D., in the mid-1990s and held that people who endure psychological struggle following adversity could often see positive growth afterward.
“We become what we think we are.”
Take, for example, the Nobel Laureate, Nadia Murad. Nadia is an Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist who lives in Germany. In 2014, she was kidnapped from her hometown Kocho and held by the Islamic State for three months. In 2018, she and Denis Mukwege were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.” Nadia’s story is an extreme example of using our difficulties to grow and become better in life.
Make The Moments Count
Happiness is not the number of moments of laughter in your life,
But the experience of laughter, in every moment in your life.
The quote is a profound lesson. Life need not be very long. Instead, it should be large. It is the depth and intensity of our experiences that shape the way we live. Many of our lives are filled with dull, dreary days, weeks, months, and often years. However, some moments pass by and take our breath away. We, as humans, live for those moments. We live for the experiences of love, power, anger, sadness, energy, pain, etc. Some of these experiences are bitter, and others are sweet. It is the quality of those experiences that matters over the quantity of those.
Happiness is just the same as well. The measure of one’s life will be how we experience happiness in every moment of our lives. We can lead a life of bliss, satisfaction, and joy if we wish to see the pleasure in being. Our life is itself a miracle. That should make us happy. Instead, we get saddened by petty reasons of sadness in our life. Let’s get over the small bumps and live a life of happiness with positivity in our daily lives. It is the secret of life.
To lead a life where you can enjoy every moment, you need to be present in every moment. You must choose a life that you love to live. Find a career that can pay you well, and at the same time, can make give you incremental joy. If you are an artist, become a freelancer. Start a design studio. If finances are a concern build it as a side hustle till it becomes big enough and can become your main day job. If you are a writer, find projects through which you can pay for your bills as well as work on your dream project. You need to find your passion in life to live fully.
Thank you for reading the article. I write a weekly newsletter summarizing all my thoughts for the week here.
Cheers,
Ravi.
About Ravi
Ravi is a poet, innovator, and entrepreneur. Ravi got a degree from IIT and Princeton University and lived in Bangalore and California, working at various software startups. He is the author of Be Buddha and regularly blogs at Ravi’s Blog.
