Happiness

I have been learning a lot about the science of happiness this past year.

When I stepped away from my career, it did not automatically result in delirious happiness. This was a bit of a surprise. I imagined reaching FIRE, turning in my resignation, and feeling waves of joy sweep me into a newer and shinier version of my life.

When my early retirement fantasies did not play out, I thought that there might be something wrong with me. I had made it to my goal, but I still wasn’t feeling how I thought I would. The mismatch in my expectations versus my reality made me start digging into the whole idea of happiness.

What did happiness even mean?

Western capitalist culture has a predictable way of pitching happiness. The media landscape is littered with scenes of happy people consuming products and services, as though there is something out there that can make everything better.

Movies and shows depict fairy-tale endings, the protagonist awash in joy. (Amazingly, the cameras always stop rolling before the smiles get tired and the euphoria wears off.)

The science around happiness is far more varied and complex than the media’s depiction. There are studies about populations of happy people and what they are doing. Studies about socioeconomics, government policies, and the outcomes on happiness. There are also neuroscientists looking at the brain, with its varied and nuanced processing and how that effects the way we feel.

Which is a lot of information.

In order to get a handle on some of the most basic concepts of happiness, I read everything I could by Arthur C. Brooks. Brooks is a professor at Harvard who offers a course on happiness. He writes a regular column in The Atlantic and has written a couple of books on the topic, one co-authored with Oprah. He has some very basic formulas that I’ve found helpful to frame my thoughts on happiness.

There is evidence, according to Brooks, that happiness is made up of three basic components:

Happiness = purpose+ enjoyment+ satisfaction

Purpose is about having a reason to wake up excited every morning; you are engaged with things that bring meaning to your life.

Enjoyment is usually a pleasure-inducing activity that you can do with others. For example, eating a candy bar alone might bring a small dopamine hit of pleasure, but having a meal while making memories with friends would engage different areas of the brain, resulting more specifically in enjoyment.

And the last one, Satisfaction, was, to me, the most intriguing of all.

Satisfaction = HAVES/WANTS

So, math nerds, the less you WANT, no matter what you HAVE, the greater the satisfaction. The greater the satisfaction, the greater the sense of happiness.

Brooks writes that happiness is really a continual internal practice, particularly from the standpoint of satisfaction. Namely, we need to routinely check in with our thoughts around what we think we want.

In order to maintain more consistent and enduring happiness, a person would have to become more aware of what they are thinking about and what they are feeling. They would need to be aware of who they hang out with that might influence these feelings, and form bonds with the people who matter.

Happiness is also easier when we aren’t so focused on ourselves and we are engage in meaningful work.

While Brooks studies happiness from an academic perspective, there is another person in the happiness arena that looks at things from a different angle.

Dan Beutner travels wide, finding cultures that are happy, and pieces together why. Beutner is best known for his work on the “blue zones”; areas in the world where people routinely live long healthy lives, and have high numbers of centenarians. He decided to take the same approach to happiness, studying locations and cultures that were happiest.

In many of these locations, government and public policy was playing a big role. Things like free college and health care do matter. So did green spaces and walkability.

Beutner discovered that, while genes and luck (life circumstances, government policy, health, etc), did play a role in happiness, that was only about half of it. The rest of happiness was truly determined by how an individual would think and feel every day. That was a matter of making internal choices.

One person he quotes in The Blue Zones of Happiness says:

“We’re not rich because we have a lot of money; we’re rich because we have few needs.”

Which is essentially:

Satisfaction = HAVES/WANTS

As wants approach the basics, closer to zero, it doesn’t matter what you have. Satisfaction, and therefore happiness, go up.

Beutner also found that happy people were developing meaningful relationships. In fact, they had more time for friends because they weren’t constantly working to get more stuff.

If you aren’t spending time striving for more, more, more…you have time to spend with people you care about. You have mental bandwidth to engage in meaningful work and relationships.

The happiest people were volunteering more, taking the focus off of themselves. They were socializing, they were engaged in clubs or faith organizations. And this isn’t short-term happiness, this is the kind that lasts.

As I learned more about true, enduring happiness, it seemed to me that Brooks and Beutner were saying similar things:

-Each of us has agency in cultivating happiness

-How we frame our thoughts about things can influence how happy we are

-Spending quality time with people we enjoy is important

-Taking the focus off ourselves is important

-Focus on finding meaning in things we do

These are the themes of enduring happiness.

American culture had pulled a fast one on me, convincing me that “I will be happy when…”. But whenever I got to another endpoint, the joy was fleeting. It turns out that enduring happiness wasn’t just that feeling, it was much, much more.

Now that I have a better understanding of how to cultivate enduring happiness, I can start to shift in that direction.

For example, the decision to write this blog was born out of a desire to engage in meaningful work and create community. I have committed to visiting with friends, and have carved out time to engage in volunteer activities.

And, I’ve got to tell you, its making a huge difference in how I feel.