The Search for Happiness

  The Search for Happiness

By Jeffrey M. Bowen

We have become obsessive about finding happiness.  In the last decade, books of relevant advice have ballooned into thousands.   Across the country, innumerable life coaches have found a new career niche.   College courses about finding life’s sweet spot are multiplying fast.  

 

The inalienable right of pursuing happiness given by our Declaration of Independence is certainly being put to the test.  National trends are misleading.   The real thing is much more of an individual matter.  For example, certain people simply choose to be happy no matter what.   Somehow it lives in their genes.     

Since the majority of us are not born with sunny dispositions, we hope for a positive outlook in things we can possess.  Yet happiness is a feeling that grows within ourselves.  No one just gives it to us.  Emotional responses to very specific associations can release it, say from a shot of dopamine, or a dog or cat sleeping peacefully in your lap, a superb dessert, or even finding a bathroom when getting desperate.   My personal favorites include making photos look like paintings and  listening to music that makes me want to dance.    

 When we think beyond emotional glee, a deeper kind of happiness stems from living a personally meaningful and purposeful life.  Linked to self-perception and values, this is a journey rather than a destination.  The journey begins at an impressionable age.

 No one experiences extremes of euphoria and depression quite like adolescents.  This is why a major study finding by psychologists at the University of San Diego is so intriguing.   Looking at a sharp decline in the happiness, self-esteem, and life satisfaction of more than a million young people since 2012, the researchers discovered a potent incubator:  social media via rapidly accelerating smart phone ownership.   Teens who limited their leisure use of communications technology to an hour daily, while devoting more time to seeing their friends in person and varying their contacts and activities, were definitely happier than teens who devoted significant daily time (up to five hours) to the internet, computer games, texting, video chat or watching TV. 

 Tech tools can become addictive.  They can isolate and alienate children and adults from one another.  The visual and textual content of messages shared among teenagers can depress self-esteem and assurance.   Parental monitoring, or adult counseling can pave the way to improved conditions for happiness.

 So in what tense – past, present, or future -- can we find happiness?  According to psychologist and bestselling author Daniel Gilbert, looking for it either in the past or the future is misguided.  Yet the present is suspect too!   In his entertaining analysis of “Stumbling on Happiness”, Gilbert targets pervasive gaps in our memory of events which we then fill in with inventions based on the here and now.  Also, when we try to imagine future events, we mispredict both what will happen and our emotional response quite badly.   As any futurist will tell you, the future is pretty much now.  Gaps in the past and future are readily filled in with today’s material.  We need better sources of happiness.

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The answer for Gilbert lies in what he calls surrogation.   As much as we resist thinking we are really very much like others, Gilbert insists that we are, and therefore we can predict the future or better understand the past by comparing what others think, do or have done – in other words by relying on a substitute for ourselves.   As the professor puts it, “Surrogation is a cheap and effective way to predict one’s future emotions,” but instead we are sorely tempted to fall back on our faulty imaginations.

An affirming treasure of insights about happiness can be found in a Harvard Grant Study which tracked a range of life factors over a phenomenal 75 years in a group of 268 graduates.   Stated simply, all the luxury and material wealth in the world meant very little without love.  The roots of love were found in human relationships, in connecting with others in personally meaningful ways.  The relationship may derive from a mother’s connection to her child, or from life in a community.  Most likely that community promotes a culture that values caring, kindness, mindfulness, and direct face-to-face communication with others of like mindedness.  

By comparing the routes  in the studies I have described, we can find some commonality.  No disastrous malignancy in our national psyche is curbing happiness. The bedrock for it lies within ourselves, in our individual relationships with others, in meetings anchored in the present moment, and in finding personal meaning and purpose.  Happiness cannot be bought, or captured by the past or the future, but it can be nurtured by the empathy and love of others within a community of concern.   

JMB/2/2/2018