Happiness is contagious…and so is sadness…I am not the only weird one!
Often times I feel that my emotions, my state of happiness or sadness have been greatly influenced by the people who are around me. I can purge with happiness just at the sight of my friends beaming with happiness and at the same time, I can plunge into depression when there is a sad soul around me. Numerous times, I have tried, but failed to delineate my emotions from that of others. The very thought that I cannot control my emotions, myself has left me frustrated. I have often wondered if it was just me? Or is it the way things are? When I tried to look for examples or rather excuses for my behaviour, I couldn’t find any. I felt people with the exception of me were happy for themselves and not for others. Of course it is not an all or none situation when I say that people are not happy for others, its just that they are not influenced by others happiness or sadness. At this stage, I was contemplating if this was of some kind of a syndrome. I had learnt to live with it and still trying to live without it, until today, when I happened to see this article
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-happy5-2008dec05,0,5449915.story
The article talks about the research that was done by the scientists at Harvard and UCSD, in which they state that
“ Knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself. A happy friend of a friend increases your odds of happiness by 9.8%, and even your neighbor's sister's friend can give you a 5.6% boost”
and..
"Your emotional state depends not just on actions and choices that you make, but also on actions and choices of other people, many of which you don't even know”
I guess, it wouldn’t be funny to call this “Globalisation of Emotions”, when the world is actually geared up for globalisation. Well, for one thing this article read my mind…but for another thing, I wouldn’t try changing it, for that I know now that it isnt going to change,..no matter how hard I tried!.
Often times I feel that my emotions, my state of happiness or sadness have been greatly influenced by the people who are around me. I can purge with happiness just at the sight of my friends beaming with happiness and at the same time, I can plunge into depression when there is a sad soul around me. Numerous times, I have tried, but failed to delineate my emotions from that of others. The very thought that I cannot control my emotions, myself has left me frustrated. I have often wondered if it was just me? Or is it the way things are? When I tried to look for examples or rather excuses for my behaviour, I couldn’t find any. I felt people with the exception of me were happy for themselves and not for others. Of course it is not an all or none situation when I say that people are not happy for others, its just that they are not influenced by others happiness or sadness. At this stage, I was contemplating if this was of some kind of a syndrome. I had learnt to live with it and still trying to live without it, until today, when I happened to see this article
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-happy5-2008dec05,0,5449915.story
The article talks about the research that was done by the scientists at Harvard and UCSD, in which they state that
“ Knowing someone who is happy makes you 15.3% more likely to be happy yourself. A happy friend of a friend increases your odds of happiness by 9.8%, and even your neighbor's sister's friend can give you a 5.6% boost”
and..
"Your emotional state depends not just on actions and choices that you make, but also on actions and choices of other people, many of which you don't even know”
I guess, it wouldn’t be funny to call this “Globalisation of Emotions”, when the world is actually geared up for globalisation. Well, for one thing this article read my mind…but for another thing, I wouldn’t try changing it, for that I know now that it isnt going to change,..no matter how hard I tried!.
posted by Uma | 6:21 AM
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