Did You Know That Happiness Has a Formula?
The Happiness Hypothesis — Summary
We all want to find happiness, don’t we? But what if there isn’t anything to find? You can’t buy happiness from the grocery store like you get milk, nor you can’t find it on the shelves of Walmart. However, there are some things that you can do in order to increase your general level of happiness.
📖 In the following article I’ll guide you through a few ideas that I’ve read in the book The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt.
The Divided Self
Jonathan Haidt begins the book by offering a good perspective of yourself: a rider on the back of an elephant. Your conscious mind is the rider — the one responsible for the rational thinking, while the unconscious mind is the elephant — in charge of your emotions and basic instincts. The rider holds the reins, but the elephant is the one that drives.
Sometimes, the elephant may want different things than the rider. For example, the elephant desires money and fame, in spite of the fact that more money (or fame) don’t make you happier. So how do you tame the elephant? By teaching the rider to train the elephant. Slowly, make the elephant strive for things that are proven to make you happy. And this is the magic formula that will aid you.
The Happiness Formula
H = S + C +V
The total level of happiness (H) is the sum of your biological set points (S), the conditions of your life (C) and the voluntary activities (V) that you do. Now let’s dive deep into each of these:
1. The Biological Set Points
It is proven that a major part of your level of happiness is given by your genes. If you were lucky enough and won the cortical lottery, you were born more optimistic than others. Optimists have, by default, a higher happiness setpoint, they can overcome adversity easier because they look on the bright side of things, finding silver linings in every situation.
If you were born a pessimist, you have three options that could make you more resilient to failure, learn, and eventually grow from it: meditation, cognitive therapy, or (even) Prozac. I highly encourage you to try meditation, however, I personally don’t like the idea of the third one, even though the author has good arguments (I’ll let you read them in the book) for Prozac, which he says is “a way to compensate for the unfairness of the cortical lottery.”
2. The Conditions of Your Life
It turns out that there are some external conditions that could affect our well-being. To achieve lasting happiness, you should aim to remove (or reduce) some of them:
- Noise — It interferes with concentration and increases stress; strive to remove the sources of noise in your life.
- Commuting — Long commutes to/from work, especially if it involves driving in heavy traffic can increase your general level of stress; you should improve your commute as much as possible.
- Lack of control — Improve your sense of control (autonomy) in order to increase your sense of engagement, energy, and happiness.
On the other hand, there are some external conditions that you should strive to enrich in your life: Love and Work.
Love. We are social beings who need love and long-lasting attachments. Having strong social relationships strengthens the immune system, extends life, speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces the risks of depression and anxiety disorders. Good relationships make people happy.
Work can be approached in one of three ways: as a job, a career or a calling. Although, it doesn’t mean that you have a calling only if you do some very important work, like putting humans on Mars. You can, for example, be a nurse assistant. Some people may find it as a job, but if you think that your work help doctors save the lives of other people, then your job is a calling. You should find a sense of meaning in what you do, something that is beyond yourself.
“Work itself is but what you deem it.” — Marcus Aurelius
3. The Voluntary Activities
Last but not least, you can do voluntary activities that will increase your happiness, overall. These are the things like meditation, exercise, reading, learning a new skill, or traveling. Because such activities must be chosen, they offer much greater promise for increasing happiness.
Money and Happiness
There is a common saying that money doesn’t make you happy. Well, this is partly true. If you live in poverty, and you don’t have enough money to provide your basic needs like food, water, and shelter, then money will make you happier! But, if you have more than enough to satisfy these needs, more money won’t help you very much. As Jonathan Haidt says in the book, you must know where to shop:
“Those who think money can’t buy happiness just don’t know where to shop … People would be happier and healthier if they took more time off and spent it with their family and friends, yet America has long been heading in the opposite direction. People would be happier if they reduced their commuting time, even if it meant living in smaller houses, yet American trends are toward even larger houses and ever longer commutes. People would be happier and healthier if they took longer vacations even if that meant earning less, yet vacation times are shrinking in the United States, and in Europe as well. People would be happier, and in the long run and wealthier, if they bought basic functional appliances, automobiles, and wristwatches, and invested the money they saved for future consumption; yet, Americans and in particular spend almost everything they have — and sometimes more — on goods for present consumption, often paying a large premium for designer names and superfluous features.” — Jonathan Haidt
Conclusion
Even though you weren’t born optimistic, you can improve your conditions to make your life happier. Among the most important ones are Love and Work. Nurture strong relationships with yourself and others while working for something that gives a sense of purpose and meaning.
Here is one quote that I really enjoyed from the book, and is, somewhat, the main idea of the book:
“Happiness is not something that you can find, acquire, or achieve directly. You have to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of those conditions are within you, such as coherence among the parts and levels of your personality. Other conditions require relationships to things beyond you: Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and a connection to something larger. It is worth striving to get the right relationships between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself. If you get these relationships right, a sense of purpose and meaning will emerge.” — Jonathan Haidt
đź“• These were just some ideas from the book The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt, which I highly encourage you to read!
🤔 In the end, I have a question: What makes you happy? Share your answers in the comments below.
