How to be happy for ever ( Not a fairy tale! )

I will just underline some ideas in order to get a structure for my thoughts. If you are an intelligent, you can apply this concept even further. As the story said: the only limit is your imagination.

- Obstacles in maintaining a higher level of happiness are:
a) a genetically determined set point for happiness , our average level of happiness will gravitate towards this value
b) happiness is a long life trait, and this kind of traits are not easily to change. It is possible, but it is implying a lot of effort.
c) hedonic adaptation - we adapt to all the positive (and negative) things (we get used with the good life), even if we receive a boost, it is only temporary.

-How to achieve sustainable increases of our happiness
a) the happiness set point is fixed, stable over time and immune to influence and control. We do not know any way to change it as he reflects immutable intrapersonal, temperamental and affective personality traits. Not a good way to increase happiness
b) circumstantial factors will provide a temporary boost, that it is rapidly lost due to hedonic adaptation. Work well on short term, but not feasible on long term.
c) intentional activity - we are talking about behavioral, cognitive and volitional activity. Hedonic adaptation seems to be much weaker in case on intentional activity. The slowest hedonic adaptation is observed in the volitional activity.

Conclusion:
Positive activity based changes last much longer than circumstantial changes, and volitional activity seems to be the best way to enhance and maintain happiness almost permanently. 

Happiness and statistics

About 10% of our happiness increase depends on circumstantial factors. I will try to find few relevant statistics related to each factor.

1.National, geographical and cultural factors
According to the World happiness report the most happy people live in Switzerland, with the last place being Togo. Check the link for top of the 2015.

2.Age, gender, ethnicity
Older people are happier than young people. In 1970 women were happier than men, but after 2000-2004 women happiness decreased and now men are happier than women. White ethnic group is the happier, Black ethnic group is the least happy.

3. Life status - marital status, occupational status, job security, job income, health, religious affiliations.
People who are paid more are happier, middle class individuals are happier than working class, married people are happier than single, divorced or widowed ones, (following the studies mentioned here: Diener, Sandvik, Seidlitz, & Diener,1993, Warr & Payne, 1982, Mastekaasa, 1994, Diener, Gohm, Suh, & Oishi, 2000). Being religious, doesn't matter what religion is, will increase your happiness overall.

4. Personal history - childhood trauma, car accident, winning and important award are influencing the happiness too

Life hacks and unicorns

* For the ones too busy to read a book, here is an YouTube channel transforming book reviews in short movies. I find it brilliant. Try it.

**Norway. You can choose high school classes like E-sports, DOTA 2, Counter Strike or League of Legends. Students will study their game of choice for five hours every week, and classes will include – among others – physical training, lifestyle and nutrition advice, training of reflexes.b Amazing, where was this stuff when i was in school? Link here.

*** Life experiences. Meet a Sangoma. What is that? Sangoma is a practitioner of herbal medicine, divination and counselling in traditional Nguni (Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele and Swazi) societies of Southern Africa. In effect they are the African Shaman. They perform a holistic and symbolic form of healing, embedded in the beliefs of their culture that ancestors in the afterlife guide and protect the living. Sangomas are called to heal, and through them ancestors from the spirit world can give instruction and advice to heal illness, social disharmony and spiritual difficulties.

**** And finally, the happiness code - psychological mumbo-jumbo that worth a look. Read it carefully, a lot to learn there. Link here.