Situation
Happiness is an overused and misunderstood concept in the modern society.People base their whole lives on pursuing happiness. Yet, I am going to show you why the “pursuit of happiness” is not worthy of your time and effort. In this article, I am going to take a closer look at what happiness really is and why being happy is such an attractive goal for most people. Then I am going to show you exactly why chasing happiness is the recipe for unhappiness and then I am going to discuss some of the more realistic options that you have.
DISCLAIMER: In order to really understand the following discussion really encourage you to read the articles on awareness and emotions before proceeding with the text. Those articles will give a clear understanding of why the conclusions in this article are only a logical outflow coming out from the above mentioned posts. If you decide to skip them, you might still be able to grasp the essential idea, but some questions might be left unanswered
What is Happiness?
Happiness is an emotion which carries certain information attached to it. It is up to us to be aware of the actual meaning that the information carries with in order to get the most out of it. What information does happiness carry with it? There are couple parts to the anwer.
At the very best happiness is a lagging indicator of your emotional state. It means that whatever state you were in before a certain event was not beneficial to you. However, it does not necessarily mean the state in which you are in right is good for you. Also it tells you that the action that you took to change that your emotional state was the right one for the current situation. If you are able to extract that information, then you will increase your awareness of your emotional well being.
If you are familiar with economics, then you will know of the economic cycles which alternate between recession and expansion. We can take the same concept of the economic cycles and use it to examine happiness.
The graph above represents changes of emotional states ranging from unhappy (trough) and happy (peak) over time. As you can see, happiness is just the result of fluctuations of the emotional states that are influenced by the outside factors. Another interesting point is that happiness lasts for a very short period of time and then it gives way to other emotions. I am going to omit the discussion of the trend line for now on purpose.
Another peculiar feature of happiness is that is dependent on the contrast with a previous emotional state of being. The more extreme the contrast the more intense the feeling of happiness will result. For example, think of the mother who thinks her son died in the war, just to find out later that he is still alive.
Chasing Happiness is The Recipe For Unhappiness
In essence, I am going to try and answer to the question of why so many people are unhappy.
The main reason would be social conditioning also known as brainwashing. I am not sure if that happens as a result of a conscious effort on behalf of the people in power or just as a result of a human nature; yet, I am pretty sure it is the mixture of both. People are told to believe that they are supposed to be happy and that is what they have to do their whole lives. Any deviations from that belief are deemed not to be normal.
As we have seen from the paragraph above, happiness is a naturally occurring phenomenon and chasing happiness is somewhat equivalent to chasing the feeling of being full after eating as a purpose of life. It is impossible to stay full all the time as you are going to get hungry, same goes for being happy – it doesn’t last.
Because of this cyclical nature of happiness, it is the perfect carrot on the stick for the manipulation of the people, because people are naturally attracted to positive feelings. Once again, weather that manipulation is conscious or not, I do not know. Yet, that is only a part of why chasing happiness leads to unhappiness.
The other major component of the recipe is the conditioned constant dissatisfaction with our current state of being. As you might remember from the discussion of what happiness is, I said that we experience happiness partly because of the contrast between our past and present emotional states.
Well, imagine being bombarded with ideas about body image, health, lifestyles that always tell you that you are not enough even though there is absolutely nothing wrong you. That creates a negative perception of ourselves, which causes us to try to find a way to improve our lives and “fix” ourselves. There are plenty of imaginative ways to make us feel happy:
- you will be happy once you get a job
- you will be happy once you lose weight
- you will be happy once you buy a house, a car, a tv;
- you will be happy once you retire
- and so on.
And so it goes, the happiness is always illusive , it is always out of your reach. We do not experience the feeling happiness because there was no big contrast from one emotional state to another. Why? Because there was nothing wrong with us to begin with. And so people go on chasing other ways to make themselves happy instead of appreciating themselves for what they are.
In short, the misunderstanding of the purpose of the feeling of happiness and low self-wroth and self-esteem cause most people to lead unhappy lives.
The Recipe for a Fulfilling Life
So what is the recipe for “happiness” or otherwise: “How to lead a fulfilling life?” I said I would come back to the trend line, which I mentioned before – so here I am. The trend line contains within itself somewhat of answer to the posed question. Let us look on how the knowledge presented here fits together to give you a recipe for a fulfilling life:
- Understand what the purpose of the feeling of the happiness is and use it accordingly. That is, use it as a source of information rather than a goal to strive for.
- Love yourself. Do not let other people get to you, keep your composure and accept that you are where you are and it is a good place to be. This will help you keep your self-worth and self esteem high.
- Experience and savor the feeling of happiness. It is a good feeling and you should enjoy while you can because you deserve it. Just do not get attached to it.
- Use the feelings of happiness to guide you towards growth. This is where that upward sloping trend line comes in. Most people neglect it in their lives. Do not make that mistake! It is my strong opinion that the purpose in each of our lives to fulfill our own individual purposes and grow as human beings. Our body comes equipped with with all of these amazing ways of telling us if we are staying on course or not. We should use them and stay on course.
- Lead a multidimensional life. It will provide you with many more opportunities to experience happiness along the way to achieving your purpose in life and growing. Diversify what you do and how you invest your time and you will be able to be happy about some things, while other might not being going to well.
Thank you for reading. Comments and feedback are always welcome!
10 Comments
You mentioned that one of the means of being happy is to fulfill your purpose in life. What if you don’t have one? Or what if you can’t find it? Will you be unhappy for the rest of your life. I doubt that most people fulfill their purpose or have any clue of what it is. And, does this also mean that people of developing nations won’t be able to be happy? Most don’t have the access to resources or the instillation of hope that we don in the United States. Yet i find that more people are happier in developing nations than they are in the first world.
Zenobia,
You touch on a very interesting subject about the happiness in the developing world. Correct me if I misunderstood, but your premise is that people in the developing world don’t know what their purpose in life is and therefore you posed a question if they are even more doomed than we, westerners, are in finding happiness.
First, I think your premise is incorrect. From traveling a lot in southeast Asia and a little bit in South America, I learned that many less developed nations actually have more people who are happy. So it’s kind of striking to us westerners, because we think that the better off you are economically, the more likely you are to be happy. But the experiences and facts I encountered show otherwise. And if you take a moment to understand why, it’s pretty clear. Folks in less developed world have fewer things to worry about, they have fewer technologies that take up their time and their attention is focused on some simple tings: providing for their family, raising the children, working in the fields and then spending countless hours with their family, friends and neighbors in the village; all of which clearly increases personal happiness. Also, let’s include the fact that they have less stress due to all the facts I mentioned above.
So going back to my initial point, they do have a pretty well outlined purpose in life and precisely because their purpose is so straightforward and simple, they are happier people.
And this takes me to my second point: people who are at least somewhat successful in self-development know that it is very important to reduce and minimize the “external noise”. By noise I am talking about all the things that make us too busy, work, activities, clubs, responsibilities, etc.
This idea of reducing the “noise” goes hand in hand with eastern philosophies of meditation: you need focus and self-awareness.
So to review:
1. People in less developed countries are usually happier exactly because they are more self-aware and focused on the simple things.
2. Many westerners take on meditation and similar philosophies precisely to reduce the noise and become more-self aware, and as a result more happy.
To end, I really liked other comments that said happiness is not the end, its a tool. And any tool, take a saw for example, need sharpening to work well. So let’s not aim for eternal happiness but instead learn to recognize happiness when we encounter it, and use it to fuel our further actions. Learning to recognize it will require us to focus on the simple. Take it in small steps, and enjoy the happy moments, precisely because they are moments, not the illusory continuous feeling of “happy”.
Please feel free to embrace or refute my thoughts.
Karolis
I see happiness as being related mostly to finding meaning. And meaning depends on your values. Maybe it’s helping others, maybe it’s growing as a person, maybe it’s creating something new. There is no one right purpose, as their is no one right person.
Eduard
Eduard:
Thank for coming back and reading another article. You make a good point about finding a meaning in our lives. Without a purpose or meaning it is hard to make ourselves do anything or progress in any one direction.
I am excited and motivated to keep writing.
Best,
Tomas
zenobia, yes many people do not feel they have a purpose in life, and surely havent ever found it yet in some cases. i believe that is why many people in this society are unhappy – and even angry. i agree, there are people in 3rd world countries that have more contentment than many people around usa.
and i agree, that happiness and contentment in life come from being involved, being social, and making a difference to others and to improve society. the preaching is that true happiness will come when you buy your house, or your car, or have that good job with health insurance. these are all happy times to be sure, but 1)not the ultimate hgher calling to happiness, and 2) any of these can be lost at a moment’s notice, either thru accident, ignorance, or outside forces such as the economy.
i have had many happy moments and times, and some bad times too. i can still remember the point that i was about the most happiest in my life – august 25 2001, when i closed on purchasing a house and moved in, i had everything – my dogs, my family nearby, my car, my job – everything just seemed all set and ready to blossom. there was even a great song by LFO that i listened to a lot – “Life Don’t Get No Better Than This” – and for me, it was very true.
that feeling lasted all of two weeks, as the terrorist plane bombings happened on september 11 2001. suddenly society needed help – my help – and i did a lot that week dealing with planeloads of stranded people and getting them on trains and buses, and helping a fireman from peoria get free train travel to go to nyc to volunteer and help in recovery efforts.
within 5 months, 900 of us amtrak workers were laid off due to the sudden downturn in travel and tourism, and from there everything unraveled with the “expected” life i had hoped would make me happy.
see, the material world can be fleeting. but remembering all those people i helped in sep 2001, along with other past incidents such as train derailments and helping friends overcome smoking or suicide or whatever, is actuallly what has given me longer happiness than the 2 weeks that i thought i had everything i wanted. after losing everything, but having the opportunity to return to grad univ, i discovered that helping people, and society, is what makes me happy. so im poorer for it, but much happier.
Hey Tom,
Increase your happiness by not pursuing it. Instead, pursue things that MAKE you happy.
You can’t pursue happiness itself: it’s an emotion, not an object. But activities and things are tangible. So pursue ones that you enjoy, where happiness is a natural side-effect.
Since it’s a tangible object, you can pursue it as much as you want. You’ll love doing it, and you’ll become happy as a result. Hiking. Making music. Eating your favorite food. Working out. Having sex. Spending time with other remarkable people. Focus on pursuing what makes you happy, not happiness itself.
You hit the nail on the head with point #1. Use happiness as a tool, not as the end result. If you notice yourself filling up with happiness while doing something, it’s a guide telling you that this is good and you should do more of it. Chasing an un-chasable abstract emotion will just drive you crazy.
So turn off the media brainwashing of you-need-this, you-want-that, you-suck-unless-you-own-this, and go do things that’ll make you happy. THAT’S how you increase happiness in your life.
One of your best articles yet, Tom. Very zen-like too.
Pleasure as always,
Oleg
Hey rivardau:
Thank you so much for sharing such a personal story. I am very touched by it. It takes a lot to share such power experiences in one life.
I think you are “lucky” to have understood what happened to you and your life and actually found a way to be happy and discover what makes you happy.
It just further proves the truth of failure being a blessing in disguise. I am happy for you and what you have been able to do with your life as not too many people can take that leap.
Thank you sharing.
Best,
Tomas
Hey Karolis:
Thank you for such a great comment. I am honored to have a reader like you visiting the website.
One of the most important themes that resonated with me is reducing the “noise” in our lives. It is not an easy process and it takes a lot of time to reduce it, but it is possible.
I can tell that you are very passionate about leading a fulfilling life and I am always grateful to read your comments.
Best,
Tomas
Thanks for your comments to my questions. And, yes, Karolis, I did say that people in underdeveloped nations are happier. I know this from first hand experience spending half of my life in an underdeveloped country.
To the person who worked for Amtrak-your life experience makes a great point that when things don’t go according to the way you want them to, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t going the way that is best for you. I’m glad to know that you’re finding your way :)
thanks for your responses
Zenobia
Hey Oleg:
A pleasure to have another invaluable insight appear on this site. Much appreciated.
Also, thank you for the encouragement, it is much needed and very much appreciated. Really :)
Out of all of the suggestions that you said, “Spending time with other remarkable people” resonates with me the most and I think is one of the major ways to cause a positive change in your life.
Best of Luck and I cannot wait for another Mix from you!
Tomas