Number 1 Psychology book
Money? No.
Good looks? Nope.
Popularity? Still nope.
According to a report by all these mentioned life goodies were topped by the biggest life goodie of them all: "autonomy" - defined as "the feeling that your life - its activities and habits - are self-chosen and self-endorsed."
This makes sense, when you take a moment to contemplate how lovely autonomy can make you feel - and how miserable its absence can make you. In fact, when you're upset about something in your life - - it's usually because you're feeling as if you're no longer in control of this area your life and bigtime lacking autonomy. Indeed, much of what creates sadness, anger, regret, disappointment - all these bad boy emotions - is having a feeling of being "autonomy-challenged"!
Researcher Angus Campbell emphatically endorses the perks of autonomy. "Having a strong sense of controlling one's life is a more dependable predictor of positive feelings of well-being than any of the objective conditions of life we have considered, " says Campbell.
A University of Michigan nationwide survey also sings the praises of autonomy - reporting how the 15% of Americans who claimed they felt "in control of their lives" also raved about having "extraordinarily positive feelings of happiness."
All of this reminds me of that now famous study on on those mice who researchers either gave cheese or electric shocks - no matter what these mice did. Purposefully these researchers created no logic to when the mice would be rewarded with cheese or punished with electric shocks. After a while, these mice eventually learned that their actions had no effect on their environment, and they lapsed into a state of passive listlessness and depression. Even when the experiment changed over, and the mice were given autonomy to avoid the electric shocks or gain more cheese, the mice were so depressed, they just lay there, choosing not to do anything at all!
Luckily, unlike a mouse, you as a human have that terrific homo sapien perk called "consciousness." Meaning? You know better not to give up, even after your autonomy has been temporarily challenged. You know after a difficult time, you can take back the control you have over your life!
