Make someone else happy

NOW PLEASE, do not go and get the impression that I am noble and saint-like. I most certainly am not.

So when I tell you that this Mother's Day my family directed their efforts at my mother-in-law enjoying her day, rather than focusing on me, it was not as an altruistic gesture but rather as taking another path to happiness, as I will explain.

My husband asked me what I would like to do for Mother's Day, to which I replied: "Nothing for me. I want to take your mother out for a nice day instead."

In past years, I would scheme about all these things that I could demand, as this was my day. And after all, the day should be celebrated as mothers are amazing - they keep households functioning, they put their children's needs above their own, they work, they organise, they love and they play.

But if I am going to take my research and learning into wellbeing seriously, then I must continue to adopt the advice from happiness gurus and wellbeing scientists all over the world.

A consistent finding in wellbeing research is that it feels good to do things for other people. Generosity and sharing has a remarkable impact on our own happiness. Loads of studies have shown there is a positive relationship between generosity (of time, kindness, money, and service) and happiness.

When you share something with another person, you not only get to experience your own pleasure but you get to experience theirs as well. In this sense, you double your own pleasure.

In society today we have become far too individualistic, focusing too much on the "Me". If you want to be really happy and well in life, then you must consider your relationships with others and how connected you are with something meaningful and bigger than yourself.

We must also move on from this individualist pursuit of happiness, aiming for more of a collective pursuit of happiness. Just as it seems agonisingly preposterous that there are starving children in the world when others enjoy such obscene levels of wealth and affluence, how can one person achieve happiness when there is such unhappiness in the world?

In my own small way, I will continue my evolving sense of happiness and wellbeing, knowing that doing something special for another person may in fact be the best path to my own happiness.

It certainly felt this way on Mother's Day, where my family and I all enjoyed the day spent doing something nice for someone else. I'd have to say it was probably one of my favourite Mother's Days.

A registered psychologist with a masters in applied psychology, Wanganui mother-of-two Kristen Hamling is studying for a PhD in wellbeing at Auckland University of Technology.