Biography
Biography: Gulden Esat
Abstract
In Turkey, the meaning of happiness flourishes with the concept of “Huzur†that can be roughly defined as inner peace. Happiness is generally understood as joy which is good to have but less important than Huzur. This study is pursued as the first phase of grounded theory design to qualitatively define the content of Huzur and its sources. Another purpose of the study was to analyze the relationship of Huzur and happiness through the perception of emerging adults (19-26 years old). Our results reveal that the state of Huzur is like a rubber rocking chair, it is hard to knock down, although it is soft and smooth, whereas happiness is like a crystal vase, it is glamorous but difficult to be preserved. Thus happiness needs to be preserved in the container of Huzur. Specifically, positive outlook, mindfulness and acceptance are reported to be both the source and the indicator of a person in Huzur. Other important sources of were mentioned to be gratitude, being around loved ones, success, integrity, prayers and autonomy. The major indicators of Huzur were listed as serenity, geniality, solution orientation, forgiveness and energy. On the opposite side, pessimism, anxiety, distrustfulness, impetuousness and anger, were described to be the properties of people lacking Huzur. When participants were asked to compare happiness and Huzur, they stated that Huzur is ascendant to happiness, more stable and more psychological which leads to a necessity of quantitative comparison of these concepts as the next phase of the study.