Aldous Huxley once said, "Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness. It's generally the by-product of other activities."
Keynote speaker, Bill O'Hanlon, a nationally renowned psychiatrist and author of numerous books, spoke at the annual Mental Health Symposium at Harre Union, Valpo University. The event was hosted by Porter-Starke CEO, Rocky Schiralli, whose mission is to improve the quality of life within our communities.
Mr. O'Hanlon focused on happiness, and the positive realities of mental health, making the claim that until 1995, "Psychology studies on negative states used to outnumber positive studies by a 17:1 ratio."
He started off by telling his story, "I was the shy one, the quiet one, and I was pretty anxious when I was younger. In college, I usually spent time alone, and I became severely depressed. So, I decided to kill myself. That was my decision."
Before making this decision, he decided to say goodbye to his friends, most of which admired him for his courage, because they wanted to do the same but were afraid of death. Only one friend begged him not to do it. She promised him a house of his own in the country if he agreed not to do it.
After agreeing, he noted that having something to look forward to shifted his entire perspective and actually increased his happiness. He never ended up living alone in that house like he imagined he would.
Soon after this, he found purpose in psychology, and realized he wanted to help people. Despite the American ideal telling him to focus on himself to become happy, he found the reality that devoting his time and energy to other people actually produced new levels of happiness and purpose for him.
Out of this focus, he created a mnemonic device that explains the four largest contributing factors to permanently increasing happiness:
SOAP, which stands for: social connection, optimism, appreciation and purpose. They each are attributed to happiness, as well as holding preventative power against sadness and loneliness. On top of this, simply being optimistic has proven that, "Even when you're delusion, if you think you can do something, even when you can't, it tends to be preventative for depression."
Check out his website for more info here: