Welcome to the 8h Humormeister's Forum edition

Fall is here with all its colors. I like Fall, however, the prospect of going towards Winter is less exciting. Over the summer months, I worked up 2 additional website topics: 'Funny kids' expressions,' and 'Famous humorous quotes.' Be sure to check them out!

In our world of rising energy costs and declining stock prices, I thought it might be good time to remind ourselves of some of the 'happiness' that we all do enjoy in life despite what's happening in the world.

Some startling facts about personal happiness

We all have a lot more happiness in our lives than we realize, such as the health we enjoy, family, friends, access to education and learning, and our basic freedoms. We take a lot for granted, but if we think for a moment, there are a lot of things that give us happiness.

Well-balanced people know that they can't expect to be happy all the time, but they enjoy the happy times as they occur.

There are valuable payoffs in being happy. Research has shown that happy people live longer with quality of life, enjoy good relationships with their life partner, they tend to be more affluent and enjoy the respect and appreciation of others.

Money can't buy happiness, but it would appear that giving it away can. A team of researchers from Harvard School of Business and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, did a number of studies on the level of happiness reported by people and how they spent their money.

One of the experiments was giving University of British Columbia five or twenty dollars. Half of them were instructed to spend the money on themselves, while the other half were instructed to spend it on others.

What they found was that the students who had spent the money on others were significantly happier at the end of the day than those who spent the money on themselves.

When they consulted psychological literature on the subject, it suggested that doing good for others is associated with one's own happiness, therefor doing volunteer work and random acts of kindness can all promote happiness.

Another benefit is that happiness facilitates personal wellness, it will protect your body from stressors that can lead to serious body and heart illnesses.