Choose and complete a questionnaire from the University of Pennsylvania Authentic Happiness website. Why did you pick this one, and what was your experience with it?
I took the Approaches to Happiness questionnaire because happiness is something that has been on my mind lately as I am trying to determine my future career, and I received the following scores:
Pleasant Life: 3.33 (around average)
Good Life: 2.67 (below average)
Meaningful Life: 4 (above average)
The questionnaire results indicate that having a higher score in Good Life and in Meaningful Life have been shown to lead to greater satisfaction with life while higher scores in Pleasant Life don’t add to satisfaction.
I am slightly surprised by my Good Life score (although maybe I shouldn’t be because of the affects having chronic migraine have had on my goals) and my Pleasant Life score. I thought that my Good Life would be higher and Pleasant Life lower since I do consider myself to generally know my strengths and care little about “having as many pleasures as possible.” As mentioned before, I do think that I have rethought my abilities and strengths in thinking of my future to accommodate for my physical abilities as a person with chronic migraine, but I don’t think that that should interfere with my wanting/working toward the Good Life. Perhaps I need to be more intentional in thinking about how my strengths and actions align. I think I do a great deal of thinking about my future, but it is possible that I often sell myself short because, as determined in a different survey, I am a very cautious person. I do tend to “play it safe” and have a hundred back up options in case the first option doesn’t work. I think an important part of the Good Life is living in the moment and trusting in your knowledge of your own abilities, and this is something that I most definitely need to work on.
I am not very surprised about my Meaningful Life score because I have always been someone who thinks about how my actions affect others and specifically have always been involved in community engagement. I hope that the work I do benefits others in my community and society, and I do feel good when I am able to see the positive effects of my actions in others. This most likely aligns with my current research interests in learning for students who face adversity (especially those with disabilities). I hope that this work will have broad applications in helping students with disabilities gain the accommodations and services they need and deserve so that their learning experience is as beneficial and effective as possible.
