What if everything you thought you knew about happiness wasn’t true? Would you be surprised to discover the things you thought you needed didn’t matter so much? What if problems, loss and suffering were better stepping stones to creating genuine lasting happiness than the hyped panaceas sold by our modern, commercial culture?
The Happiness Disconnect
Dan Gilbert is a leading Harvard psychology professor who has dedicated years of study and research to the experience of happiness. His first TED Talk on the subject is incredibly interesting and entertaining. Check out the link at the bottom of this article for his presentation. He also wrote the New York Times best-seller, Stumbling to Happiness.
Gilbert studied people who were the victims of bad situations or whose life situations were disappointingly limited and how that affected their ability to achieve happiness. In his TED Talk he shared the life experiences of individuals that highlight the disconnect between what we believe creates happiness and what doesn’t .
Moreese Bickman spent 37 years incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. He was released from prison at age 78 on the basis of new DNA evidence. Upon his release, Bickman described his life in prison as “glorious” and claimed he would never have changed a moment of it.
Jim Wright was the Chairman of the House of Representatives and the most powerful Democrat in the USA when he was forced to resign, in disgrace, after he was caught in a shady deal. He went into political exile and suffered financial ruin. Yet years later he said; “I am so much better off, physically, financially, mentally and in almost every way.”
Gilbert says what Bickman, Wright and countless others all have in common is that they learned how to synthesize happiness. That’s the kind of happiness we generate ourselves, often in the face of adversity, rather than through good luck or achieving our dreams. What is more, Gilbert discovered that people who synthesize happiness are often happier more intensely and for longer durations than people who achieve happiness through the generally accepted routes of good fortune, achievement or acquisition.
The Happiness Immune System
According to Gilbert, we have a built-in happiness immune system that rewires our brains and keeps us at a happiness baseline. This is why the elevated feelings we experience when we reap the rewards of good fortune or achieve our dream job/house/relationship… don’t last. According to his research, the honeymoon phase of our natural happiness starts to expire at about three month mark at which point our happiness immune system takes us back to baseline. If we want those elevated feelings again, we have to find something new to chase.
On the other hand, this same system protects us when we undergo significant losses or traumas. People who suffer setbacks are also generally returned to their pre-loss happiness baseline within a similar time frame. The happiness immune system brings us back into equilibrium by synthesizing the feelings of happiness. It also goes a step further in compensating us for our troubles by bestowing a few bonus scoops of additional happiness. Joy! Research indicates that internally generated, synthesized happiness lasts longer and is more intense than the happiness we derive through good fortune. Life is just a little sweeter for those who have faced adversity.
Making Happier Life Choices
What do we do with this information? As Gilbert says, a trip to Paris is quite obviously better than gallbladder surgery even if within several months we are likely to be just as happy either way. How are we to employ this knowledge in making choices in life? Arthur C. Brooks, another Harvard happiness expert, believes he has the answer and I would have to say, he’s got the right end of the stick if not the last word.
Arthur C. Brooks is credentialed up the ying-yang. With post-graduate degrees in economics, philosophy and public policy, he is a voluminous writer on the subject of happiness. He is also a podcaster and past president of the American Enterprise Institute. His multiple best-selling books include How to Build a Happy Life, as well as Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt, and more recently, From Strength to Strength: Finding Happiness, Success, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.
His analysis of the research leads him to believe we should all think twice about setting our caps for big goals and high achievements. A bit of a giggle really, considering the ambitious trajectory of his own life. He appears to be a leader of the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ camp but perhaps he is just well-prepared for the major life problem that is secretly waiting to kick him up the backside.
Brooks says that within six months of any significant achievement the shine is off the apple. What is more, the cost of chasing our dreams in terms of our general well-being, finances, time to explore other avenues in life or build meaningful relationships, may outweigh the value of what we achieve chasing our dreams. As Brooks puts it, the happiness derived from the big things wears off, while the costs of chasing the big things lasts forever.
Blowing the Happiness Circuits
Brooks studied the happiness trajectories of two groups of people, lottery winners and people who became paraplegics. Again like Gilbert, he found the majority of people who suffered the loss of their mobility were pretty much back to their previous baseline happiness within six months. This doesn’t mean they didn’t wish to have their mobility back. Rather they learned to be just as happy regardless. Lottery winners, however, after six months months returned to a new base line of happiness that was slightly below their previous baseline. Winning the lottery made them less able to be happy in the long term.
Winning or gaining something major like the lottery ‘blows the happiness circuits’. Old pleasures, pastimes, and friendships just don’t compare anymore. The winners now have to bag better accomplishments or achievements just to get back to their happiness baseline before winning the lottery.
Brooks recommends we spend our lives dedicated to habits of faith, family, community and work rather than chase costly dreams. A link to his TED Talk on the Secret to Happiness is posted below for anyone who would like to hear this straight from the horse’s mouth.
Happiness on the Path to The Beautiful Life
As a matter of my own experience, looking to others for happiness, whether in the community at large or within your personal circle, is just as unreliable as looking for happiness in things. Adversity and loss often bring a maturing of perspective and a growth in understanding and compassion that contribute to a deeper experience of life. There is room in that deeper experience to explore what uniquely and personally connects us to a beautiful experience of living and the kind of happiness that is impervious to life’s misfortunes.
The process of finding your way to The Beautiful Life involves uncovering those uniquely personal and meaningful features of experience, honouring them and implementing them into your daily life. You can find more on starting that process by following the link below.
Find Your Way to The Beautiful Life
Namaste Beautiful Reader
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