Yesterday, I saw a TED talk by Shaka Senghor about redemption. In his talk, he explained that he battled depression while in prison by reading books. Through literature he achieved redemption, and happiness. Senghor was able to forgive himself for the bad deeds that landed him in prison, and part of the reason he was able to do that was because he achieved things while in prison.
www.ted.com
There is an unfair stigma against having problems. Nobody likes to have problems. However, without problems we cannot have accomplishment. Accomplishing things definitely makes us humans happy. Even small accomplishments, such as waking up in the morning without hitting snooze on the alarm clock, can ignite goodness inside of us. Large accomplishments, like obtaining your dream job or getting married, can unlock euphoria.
Redemption is a large accomplishment. When we feel redemption, we also feel accomplishment. When we feel accomplishment we feel happiness. This is evidenced in the TED talk when Senghor explains that after he was in prison for killing a man, he felt like he needed to redeem and reinvent himself. After he did this, he felt happy. Senghor had a unique opportunity in prison, he had a challenge. His challenge was that he needed to change his reputation from a vilified murderer to a good person. After he accomplished this, he achieved happiness.
Interesting article about someone regaining their happiness after something drastically alters their life. The person in this article (senghor) seems to have worked hard to regain his happiness and confidence in himself.
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