"Happy? Grouch? Could be your genes," declares the title of an article featuring the research of psychologists at the University of Illinois. Says Daniel Goleman of the New York Times, "Studies of happiness in several countries have found that money makes little difference to perceptions of happiness, except among the very poor. Neither does education, marriage and a family, or any of the many other variables that researchers have sought to correlate with contentment. Each facilitator may make a person a little happier, but it has minor impact when compared with the individual’s characteristic sense of well-being."
A study by a husband and wife team of psychologists determined that about half of your ability to be happy comes from heredity, the other half from environment. The study included identical twins, some of whom were raised together and some who were raised apart from each other. According to Edward and Carol Diener, there was little difference in the well-being of the twins.
Neurologists believe they have located a spot in the brain where pleasure or happiness is registered. They have also found that unhappiness seems to be registered in the pre-frontal lobes of the brain. Individuals with depression seem to have more activity on the right frontal lobe of the brain.
Yet there is a factor which secular research usually doesn’t recognize. That is the God factor, the change that comes to those who do an about-face and begin to live for something and for someone.
Take Malcolm Muggeridge, the sharp-tongued former editor of Punch. He was described as a cynic, a skeptic, a liberal and a brilliant man of letters. In World War II, involved in British intelligence, Muggeridge was stationed in Mozambique. He was depressed and decided to end his life. His plan was to start swimming in the ocean and not come back. But something happened–something that changed his life. A bright light appeared before him. He didn’t understand it. He only knew that God was there, and God didn’t want to see him end it all. Then this cynical, sharp-tongued, never-quite-happy fellow met Mother Theresa. He never spoke of it as a conversion, but his life turned around. He became a believer and wrote about the regret that he had in not making his discovery years before.
You were born with a certain disposition, and the transformation of conversion will not change you into a different personality type, but it will radically change your outlook on life. Muggeridge was but one of millions able to say, "When I found God, He changed my life, and I wouldn’t go back for all the gold in all the world." The researchers are right: Winning the lottery, seeing your dream come true, reaching your goal is a momentary lift, but the God-lift never ends. - Resource Reading: 1 Corinthians 6