Chapter 6
Reconsider

Understanding the Myth of Happiness Is the Key to Happiness

“Most folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”

– Abraham Lincoln

Tell me, who do you know who is actually willing to die for you? Chances are, when it comes down to it, most of us can only identify our parents and perhaps our siblings and/or spouse as really being prepared to die for us. So, why is it then, that we let so many people dictate the terms of our lives? Why do we allow the nebulous entity we call society define what will, or should, make us happy?

Why do we allow the nebulous entity we call society define what will, or should, make us happy?

Happiness has been defined many ways, but a widely accepted understanding is that it involves¹ frequently feeling positive emotions such as joy, interest, pride, love, and achievement and infrequently experiencing negative emotions such as sadness, anxiety, stress, and anger.² That definition doesn't distinguish, though, between Happiness and happiness.

Many of us mistake happiness, the pursuit of pleasure, for Happiness, the practice of pursuing a life rich in purpose.

Many of us mistake happiness, the pursuit of pleasure, for Happiness, the practice of pursuing a life rich in purpose.

After all, ours is a pleasure-seeking society; it teaches us to think that bursts of sensations are meaningful. Perhaps, you just enjoyed a wonderful meal, a recent vacation to your dream destination, a delicious bottle of wine, fantastic sex, or were surprised with a bonus at work. Who doesn't love those things? However, their temporary happiness effects are like those of chemical stimulants, and they soon wear off.

When we focus on these pleasurable stimulants, we tend to end up making mental lists of all the things we think we need to get and do in order to be happy. “If I just had this, this, and this …

That's the H/happiness trap. What makes it dangerous is that the things we think we want are so often not those we actually need. So, having those things will only give you a delusion of pleasure, which often does not actually even feel positive. We find ourselves living a charade, trying to convince ourselves, and others, we're loving our life when we're actually increasingly disturbed by our dissatisfaction.

Ask yourself, have you ever craved attention, validation, recognition, approval, all as a means to feel a sense of happiness? We do this because we feel something is missing in our lives, and we've been conditioned to believe that if others see us as interesting, talented, and successful, we'll be happy with ourselves. But let me ask you, how much unhappiness has the lack of these things caused you?

It's perverse; we put our happiness in the hands of others, even of those we don't know. Social media has intensified this problem. Someone I don't even know retweeted my message! Yay! More than 1,000 strangers have read my review! Awesome!!! Except that Happiness isn't a zero-sum game. You don't win it by being more impressive, well liked, or successful than others. And the world, or someone in your life, doesn't win by taking happiness away from you. We can all make as much of it as we set our minds to, and we can live with it even in the tough times.

We are so intent to have positive feelings, but emotions are always fleeting, like hits of a drug. As soon as the hits of elation dissipate, we feel a lack of happiness again. True happiness is not a matter of a chemical rush.

Psychological research shows that the pursuit of happiness can actually make you less happy.³ I've seen many variations and interpretations of that research while developing the lifescale methodology. The key to a more satisfying and fulfilling life, according to experts, is the pursuit of meaning and having meaning in your life. In his book, Authentic Happiness,⁴ Martin E.P. Seligman, PhD, shared, “Meaning comes from belonging to and serving something beyond yourself and from developing the best within you.”

The key to a more satisfying and fulfilling life, according to experts, is the pursuit of meaning and having meaning in your life.

Our desire to have enviable things and to feel approved of, liked, or even admired is entirely normal. It's human. We evolved that way. It's not our fault, and blaming ourselves isn't the point. But if we want to get out of the H/happiness trap, we have to appreciate that honest to goodness Happiness is not a matter of the pleasure we take from the stuff we have, the socially approved satisfaction we seek, the rush of temporary escape from our challenges we get from a fun night out or a scary movie, or a matter of others' views of us.

Happiness is within our power, in our hands, because it is not a fleeting feeling that will inevitably dissipate; it's a process, a journey.

Authentic happiness is the result of a mindset. It follows from the adoption of the belief that happiness is within our power, in our hands, because it is not a fleeting feeling that will inevitably dissipate; it's a process, a journey. Our happiness is not tied to what other people think of us or even how they make us feel. True Happiness is rooted in how we see ourselves and the quest we are on. It flows from a sense of appreciation of how richly meaningful life can be, which allows us to be grateful for the experiences it offers, good and bad—though appreciating the bad will probably take some time.

The key is to seek the pleasures that contribute to true Happiness, to a sense that we are making a valuable contribution in life and pursuing what really matters to us. The meaningful and positive pursuit of happiness is also the foundation for this. We have to shed ourselves of devotion to the misleading notions that have kept us in the trap. The state of your mind, heart, and spirit is a result of whatever it is you set your mind to and whatever it is that you strive toward.

We tend to think of happiness as a goal. But Happiness is not a destination. It's a way of life. You don't just land upon an island of happiness and say, “Yes! I've arrived; now I will forever be happy!” Happiness isn't something we have to search high and low for. The secret to real, bona fide Happiness is to accept that it's already inside you. You just have to know what it is that makes you Happy. You have to know what it is you are genuinely interested in achieving, and what it is you truly value.

A big part of why living with Happiness can be so difficult is that we haven't undergone deeply introspective examination of ourselves and what we value. What really makes you happy? Can you honestly say? What is it you're truly thankful for? I, for one, never really thought further about this than believing I took pleasure from the false gods I worshipped.

We can all live with authentic Happiness; it just takes some committed work.

Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky, a leading researcher in the field of happiness studies and author of The Myths of Happiness, writes, “You can make yourself happier just like you can make yourself lose weight. But like eating differently and going to the gym faithfully, you have to put in the effort every day. You have to stay with it.”

Understanding that we can choose to live with authentic Happiness, every day if we keep up the work, really deeply absorbing the truth of that and believing it, is the next step in lifescaling.

To choose Happiness we have to first know what actually makes us Happy, what we value in our lives, where we are going and why. Clarifying all of that begins with a deeply thoughtful consideration of our values.

Notes

¹https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-addiction-connection/201506/whats-your-definition-happiness

²Lyubomirsky et al., 2005

³https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-28409/the-pursuit-of-happiness-doesnt-actually-make-us-happy-try-this-instead.html

⁴https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Happiness-Psychology-Potential-Fulfillment/dp/0743222989/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534104255&sr=8-1&keywords=authentic+happiness