Happiness

New Year’s Resolutions – whether you love them or loathe them, millions of people will have made them this past week. If you look a little deeper at the reason behind many resolutions, it comes down to wanting to increase our happiness levels.

Have you ever had a goal or wanted a desired outcome in a situation so bad that you could feel yourself ache inside? Then you poured yourself into prayer hoping and waiting for the fulfillment of blessings or for your circumstances to turn in your favor. Perhaps you are single hoping and praying for God to bring you your partner in life or you are wishing for a change in career goals or expanded opportunities. Over time, we can wait and in some instances actually feel like we are even further away from our desired outcome. We have hit an emotional roadblock and are stuck. Nothing is shifting or moving. The reality is that we are likely on a learning detour on our road to blessings.

‘As a single person, I dread Christmas,’ wrote an on-line pal. ‘My family live too far away to visit, and my friends disappear to spend time with their own families. For me, Christmas and new year are the loneliest times of the year…’

I’ve been serving in Christian singles social groups for the past 10 years. When I first got involved a regular theme of discussion was ‘The Church should be doing more for singles’.
However, when I began to organise events for Christian singles, I realised that we were a huge group of very capable and talented people who had the potential to organise ourselves, and to offer the Church support in its efforts to understand and serve us. We can start to make a difference to a church culture that is often focused more on couples and children.

‘Why would any woman look at me, HopefulGirl?’ my pal asked, miserably. ‘I’m short, I’m balding, I’m carrying a few extra pounds, and I don’t earn much. I’ll never find love.’

Have you ever written a letter to someone you have never met? When I was a little girl we used to call them pen pals. Every year our teacher would bring in a list of children from another school, sometimes even from another country. We would get to choose a person from the list to begin writing to.

A recent study has looked at two different ways of convincing people to pitch in to help wider society.

Imagine there’s a drought in your town, and the local authority need you to conserve water.

Tall, dark and handsome. Many women would include these three adjectives on their wish list. Women often swoon over tall, dark and handsome celebrities, they visualise what the tall, dark and handsome fictional character in their latest romance novel really looks like, and they dream about the tall, dark and handsome man they expectantly long for.