1. On Happiness
Happiness used to feel simpler when I was younger. It wasn’t a concept - it was just something you were. Or you weren’t. Until you were again.
Initially I thought that the ambiguity of happiness might be a function of age. In my childhood, I remember it being about waiting for the new FIFA to come out and then staying up all night to play it with my brother. And that happiness suddenly vanishing as I threw the controller down after conceding a last minute ridiculous goal that must have been a computer glitch.
And then I got into my twenties, and happiness was any opportunity to have a drink with friends, enjoying the lack of responsibilities we were fortunate enough to be able to enjoy. And then those came: things I needed to think about the future. Not even the big ones like marriage, or kids. Just those ones associated with trying to figure out a career, or friendships, or family dynamics. And it appeared over time that happiness wasn’t as easy to come by as it used to be. Had I got it wrong, somehow?
Why am I not happy?
Google searches for ‘Why am I not happy?’ have shown a steady upwards trend from 2009 to 2022.
Over this same time frame, social media has exploded across all facets of our lives, slowly growing, pushing and flooding concepts like ‘living your best life’ or ‘good vibes only’ continually into our feeds.
The NPD Group, a market research company, circled a line around the year ‘2012’ as the tipping point to mark what would become the explosion of the self-help industry. There were 17.6 million sales of self-help books from 2013 through 2019 alone, an increase of 11 percent annually.
Have you ever felt the following?
“I wish I was happier.”
“Why are other people happy, and I’m not?”
“I’m not happy. What’s wrong with me?”
It feels like now, more than ever, we’re surrounded by people trying to tell us when or how we should be happy. Social media algorithms promote manufactured ideals of perfection of people near and far. Happy, smiling, perfect couples adorn the adverts that hunt us across our media. And the self-help industry rampages off the back of the misguided idea that we’re all entitled to feel happy, all of the time.
If you aren’t happy, there’s something wrong with you. Or that’s the message it seems many are trying to sell. Because they have the cure, of course.
But what if the truth that few are willing to admit out-loud is that humans are not designed to be happy.
Or even content.
We’re designed to be effective.
To survive and reproduce.
Now this isn’t the only thing we’re designed for, of course.
But we have to survive first, in order to achieve anything.
Nature doesn’t want us to get too comfortable with states of contentment; they lower our guard against possible threats to our survival. If we had spent all of our yesteryears wandering sun strewn grasslands while counting the number of butterflies drifting lazily through the air, we’d have made for easy pickings for a nearby lion.
It is inate within us to consistently be on the lookout for potential threats, and to consider solutions that prioritise our survival.
Our continued existence is proof that, over history, we have preferred to train ourselves to remain vigilant to life’s problems, lest they rear up unexpectedly and try to eat us, rather than stroll around attempting to be happy all the time.
Worrying about and finding solutions to life’s challenges is what has kept us alive. Sometimes requires us to outsmart sneaky lions, other times it’s figuring out how to handle a cost of living crisis.
Moments of happiness come and go, but any belief that they should be our default state is not just unrealistic, it’s deeply unnatural.
Being effective, productive, and aware to what needs doing in order to ensure we’re still alive tomorrow - that is natural.
Without overcoming the obstacles that threaten our safety, we can’t create the possibility of experiencing moments of happiness.
Mark Manson is someone who’s done a lot of research into this concept. He puts it like this:
“To be effective, we need to solve problems.
Therefore, to be happy, we need something to solve.
Therefore happiness requires problems, because it lies in overcoming them.
”
What’s he’s saying is:
Happiness is not a feeling.
It’s not something that is passively bestowed upon anyone.
Happiness is not something we ARE.
Happiness is an activity.
Happiness is something we DO.
“When we force ourselves to stay positive all the time, we deny the existence of our life’s problems. And when we deny our problems, we rob ourselves of the chance to solve them and generate happiness.”
What comes to mind when you think of the Dalai Lama? Bald head, red robes, surprisingly defined arms and sitting totally still in a meditative state? He’s a man who’s life has centred on the art of detachment; considering his thoughts deeply and with purpose. But he is also a tremendous source of joy. And he recognises that being happy is an active state, not brought about by doing nothing:
“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”
The Buddhist concept of happiness never really made much sense to me. Until I started thinking of it as not something we are, but something we do.
If we spend less time focusing on an outcome - ‘happiness’ - and rather concentrate on actions that are meaningful to us, we increase the likelihood that we will experience happiness as part of the process. And that’s kind of the whole point.
Moments of happiness are wonderful, uplifting and vital parts of life. They allow us to recognise and take stock of what we have. And this in turn allows us to feel gratitude. But at the same time, they are fleeting, and subjective. What made us happy 10 years ago, can leave us indifferent today. Drinking an ice-cold beer over an ocean might leave us feeling happy and content in one city, but sad and remorseful in another.
Can we ever really control what makes us happy?
Centuries ago, Epictetus was a man born into slavery. His life was destined to be one where many aspects of his lived experience were out of his control. He was a founding mind in the Stoic school of thought - one obsessed with the idea of control - and his experiences taught him this:
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
The path to happiness starts when we stop worrying about what we can’t control.
Living with happiness is to question the world around us when it tries to convince us that we should be happy all the time. Limit the number of times you ask yourself, ‘Why am I not happy?’ and replace it with, ‘What can I do?’ And happiness may just follow.
Happiness is a by-product, not a goal.
Happiness is an action.
Happiness is what we do, not what we are.
We are built to be effective, not happy.
These posts are written to remind our readers that; Life is hard, we’re all just trying our best and we could all do with a little help, no matter where it comes from.
What do you think about Learning from Happiness? We’d love to hear your comments below.