Happiness in Islam is based on patience (Sabr) and gratitude (Shukr)
Alhamdulillah,I started this project with a vague intention of understanding the psychological source if happiness from an Islamic perspective. Having understood the non-Islamic perspective and the Islamic perspective, I have reached a point where for me, the source of happiness is obvious. What is important is that we can learn to become happy and we can learn to become unhappy. Insha Allah, our efforts with the Productive Teens project will see whether we can go from a theoretical discussion to a successful action research. In the meantime, everything that I have been working for over the last three years is summarized in this hadith
Current status
Literature review is on-going. I am now immersing myself is social psychology. I have about 200 students ++ working on making videos for the Productive Teens project.Is Happiness Dispositional or Situational?
I did it again. Not for the first time, I thought that I understood something and then I read a book that forces me to re-think my assumptions about what I thought I knew was true. In this case, I read Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect. Zimbardo says that many disciplines take a dispositional view For example, a dispostional view of happiness is that happiness is "inside" an individual). It "belongs" to the individual. However, social psychologists tend to take a situational view oft hings. Yes, individuals are important but how they feel and behave depend on the group dynamics and other environmental factors. If that is the case, happiness would be an attribute "shared" by all group members when the social dynamics are just right. I will probably need a few months to do some more reading and think about it before I can formulate my opinion on this question.
Can You Find Happiness By Taking Drugs?
For the last couple of weeks, I have focused my literature review (which never stops)on the question whether one can find happiness by taking drugs. The answer seems obvious: No. But why? Aren't drugs "sources of pleasure"? Let's briefly talk about the process of addiction. Whenever we do something, there are chemical reactions in our brains and electrical pathways are created on the surface of our brain. From a purely scientific perspective, happiness is what happens when certain chemicals are released in the brain. These chemicals can be released by taking certain substances (like alcohol, cigarettes, soft drugs or hard drugs)or by behaving in a certain way (like sexual relationships, shopping, working hard and being rewarded by the boss and so forth). Such behaviour creates stronger pathways in the brain. Repetition of such behaviour leads to deeper pathways. Ultimately, addiction arises when the structure of the brain (it's anatomy) and the way it is organized (physiology)changes so that the anatomy and physiology of an addict's brain is different from that of a normal person. Typically, addiction leads to a harmful way of living where short-term pleasure is always followed by long-term pain. The funny thing is that we now know - scientifically - that such an approach to finding happiness is totally counter-productive. We also know - scientifically - that one of the best ways to find happiness is through developing a spiritual connection with God. Andrew Newberg and Robert Waldman in their book "How God Changes Your Brain" tells of research in which brain scans of people who did not meditate (i.e. "baseline scans")were compared to brain scans of people who did meditate (i.e. "meditation scans"). They found that meditation and prayer did much more to stimulate the parts of the brain that leads to internal peace of mind. However, there is ONE CONDITION. Andrew Newberg and Robert Waldam found that when people perceived God as being a tyrant, the brain released chemicals that lead to a situation of fear and anti-social behaviour. When people perceived God as being loving, kind and merciful, the brain released chemicals that lead to happiness and pro-social behaviour.
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