happiness

For my part of our final writing project, I am doing a piece on happiness. I have done quite a bit of researching on the subject, and it has been very interesting. I found a scholarly review about the study of the background of happiness. One scholar first suggested that happiness was genetic, that you can not be happier than your makeup. He wrote a book about it and everything, then a few years later; he reevaluated his statements and saw that although genetics is the base point of happiness, you control how happy you are as an individual. He used the following example to explain his new theory.
"I wanted people to know that happiness is genetically influenced but it is not fixed," Lykken says, adding that he sees the set point of subjective well-being-a term he uses interchangeably with happiness-as a lake upon which each of us sails our own personal boat. While the standard water level is determined by genetics, it will rise and fall depending on what's going on in a person's life, always returning to baseline in a fairly short while whether he or she wins the lottery or loses the house to a hurricane (Maynard). It is a really interesting article, you should check it out!