The Greater Good: Why Happiness Is Good For You And Others

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So why being happy (and I do not mean momentary pleasures, but lasting feeling of peacefulness and contentment) is so good, we might want to make it our highest priority in life? The obvious answer is because it feels nice, great even! But does feeling great make it good enough to put happiness above other goals?

Let's examine the benefits of happiness a little more closely.

In recent years, more research has become available on benefits of happiness. Turns out, happiness affects many facets of our lives.

art by ~bayb-kiedis

The clear links are that happy people (both children and adults) deal better with life’s never-ending challenges. They are less prone to depressions and anxieties (1). They are more likely to exhibit greater self-control and have better coping skills (2,3,4). They are more sociable and have more friends (5,6). They are optimistic and generally are in better mood.

There are less obvious connections. For example,

According to several studies, happy people are more likely to live longer (7,8,9).

Happiness may help us live not only longer lives, but healthier ones, too. Martin Seligman, a renowned positive psychologist found that optimistic people are much less likely to die of heart attacks than pessimists, controlling for all known physical risk factors (10). The connection of the psyche and health is studied by the psychosomatic medicine. Turns out that our levels of anxiety, stress, negative emotions or conversely, levels of relaxation, comfort, and happiness are major factors in medical outcomes. For example, high blood pressure and irritable bowel syndrome appear to be related to everyday stresses. Stress diverts energy away from the immune system, thereby promoting infections and other illnesses in the body (11). It is believed that almost all physical illness have mental factors that determine their onset, presentation, maintenance, susceptibility to treatment, and resolution (12).

Personal life is greatly affected as well. Happy people have fewer divorces and more marital satisfaction (5,6). I believe a lot of it has to do with the ability to be self reliant in making oneself happy instead of depending on a spouse to do it, and eventually getting gravely disappointed.

Happy people have more energy and are more active, even later in life (13,14). Which comes in handy with the tendency to live longer lives.

Research demonstrates that happier people display greater creativity at work and produce higher income (15). According to one study, happy teenagers go on to earn very substantially more income 15 years later than less happy teenagers, equating for income, grades, and other obvious factors (10).

Another rather important point is that happiness may be the meaning of life. A long time ago Aristotle concluded, "Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and the end of human existence". Similarly, Ayn Rand believed that "achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life..."

So being happy is conductive to leading a longer, healthier and meaningful life, enjoying deeper personal and social relationships, and even achieving financial stability.

Even so, focusing on our own happiness may somehow seem a self-indulgence, a selfish act. But it is not! By being happy, we can actually help those around us and the society in general!

art by CainPascoe

People in the vicinity of happy individuals get affected positively, even if they do not always notice. Happy people of all ages are more cooperative and less antagonistic, which results in less bullying at school and less negativity at workplace. Happier individuals form closer friendships, providing stronger social and emotional support to their friends.  Due to the better family dynamics, happier adults benefit their spouses and raise happier, better adjusted children. Moreover, happiness is 'contagious'. When people are in company of happy people, they tend to get into better mood themselves.

The influences of individual good mood can be felt by the society at large. For example, national economics is positively affected, as scientists prove that happier children deliver better performance at school, and happier adults perform better at work (16). Besides, happier people who evidently are healthier, use fewer sick days and are more productive. 

Due to the benefits to their health, happy people also contribute to driving the cost of healthcare down.

Besides helping the world indirectly, happier people get involved with charity work, volunteering their time and donating money (17,18).

Finally, happiness is a perpetuum mobile, a perpetual cycle, in which being happy induces positive outcomes that in turn beget more happiness, and so on…

So, happiness touches most aspects of daily life, making it more enjoyable and gratifying every single day, through good times and bad. It feels great and benefits the happy individual, as well as his/her families, friends, and even the world at large. And it generates even more happiness!

The only thing left for us to do is practice our happiness skills consistently and enjoy the outcomes!

References:

(1)   Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Very happy people.  Psychological Science, 13, 81-84.

(2)    Carver, C. S., Pozo, C., D., et al. (1993). How coping mediates the effect of optimism on distress: A study of women with early stage breast cancer. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 375-390.

(3)    Fredrickson, B. L., & Joiner, T. (2002). Positive emotions trigger upward spirals toward emotional well-being. Psychological Science 13, 172-175.

(4)    Keltner, D., & Bonanno, G. A. (1997). A study of laughter and dissociation: Distinct correlates of laughter and smiling during bereavement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 687-702.

(5)    Berry, D. S., & Hansen, J. S. (1996). Positive affect, negative affect, and social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 796-809.

(6)    Harker, L., & Keltner, D. (2001). Expressions of positive emotions in women’s college yearbook pictures and their relationship to personality and life outcomes across adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80,112-124.

(7)    Danner, D. D., Snowdon, D. A., & Friesen, W. V. (2001). Positive emotions in early life and longevity: Findings from the nun study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 804-813.

(8)    Maruta, T., Colligan, R. C., Malinchoc, M., & Offord, K. P. (2000). Optimists vs. pessimists: Survival rate among medical patients over a 30-year period. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 75, 140-143.

(9)    Ostir, G. V., Markides, K. S., Black, S. A., & Goodwin, J. S. (2000). Emotional well-being predicts subsequent functional independence and survival. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 48, 473-478

(10) http://www.minnisjournals.com.au/educationtoday/article.php?article=Positive-education-and-the-new-prosperity-546

(11)Dillon, K. M., Minchoff, B., & Baker, K. H. (1985). Positive emotional states and enhancement of the immune system. International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 15, 13-18.

(12)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosomatic_medicine

(13)Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Wong, M. M. (1991). The situational and personal correlates of happiness: A cross-national comparison. In F. Strack, M. Argyle, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Subjective well-being: An interdisciplinary perspective(pp. 193-212). Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press. 

(14)Watson, D., Clark, L. A., McIntyre, C. W., & Hamaker, S. (1992). Affect, personality, and social activity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 1011-1025.

(15)Estrada, C., Isen, A. M., & Young, M. J. (1994). Positive affect influences creative problem solving and reported source of practice satisfaction in physicians. Motivation and Emotion, 18, 285-299.

(16)Staw, B. M., Sutton, R. I., & Pelled, L. H. (1995). Employee positive emotion and favorable outcomes at the workplace. Organization Science, 5, 51-71.

(17)Cunningham, M. R., Shaffer, D. R., Barbee, A. P., Wolff, P. L., & Kelley, D. J. (1990). Separate processes in the relation of elation and depression to helping: Social versus personal concerns. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 26, 13-33.

(18)Williams, S., & Shiaw, W. T. (1999). Mood and organizational citizenship behavior: The effects of positive affect on employee organizational citizenship behavior intentions. Journal of Psychology, 133, 656-668.

       

Does Happiness Require Settling?

Once I heard a parable about a poor man lying under a banana tree eating a banana. Another man comes up to him and asks,

- Where have you gotten the banana?  

- Plucked it from the tree. 

art by ~DicklessHunter

- Well, you could pick a few bananas and sell them.

- What for? 

- With that money you could hire someone to help you pick more bananas, and sell them, too.   

- What for? 

- In a month, you'd be able to hire 10-15 people picking bananas for you, selling them, and making a lot of money... 

- What for? 

- Well, then you would be able to lie under a tree, eat a banana, enjoy the life and do nothing! 

- But I already do!

Indeed, having a more easygoing attitude is a powerful shortcut to a happier life. It is liberating to realize that we do not need much to be happy. That being happy is being peaceful and content with life at all times and all junctures.

We go through life surrounded by infinite details and choices. Our mood and happiness depend on myriads of daily conscious and unconscious decisions about what we focus on and what we let go; which desires, possessions, events, and battles do or do not deserve our emotional investment.

So it may seem that since happiness does not really depend on external factors, we should not desire them. Why aspire for success or career when we can be happy without? Why bother creating a family, compromise and sacrifice our freedoms, when it will bring us as much aggravation as bliss, especially if ultimately we should not rely on anyone else to make us happy except ourselves? Why do anything when we can just work on cultivating peacefulness and contentment?

Even our values seem to be in the way of happiness. "Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?" This seemingly unassuming and seemingly obvious question hints at a univocal choice: fight to be right or settle and be happy.

It sounds that the way to happiness is to take whatever happens to us without challenging, giving up on our dreams, ambitions, beliefs and values.

In order to be happy, do we need to settle?

We will get trapped by this question, if we try to give a definitive “yes” or “no” answer:

art by ~conradyoung

Yes! We need to settle. If we are not as happy as we want to be, we need to change our attitude, we need to change ourselves. If we take everything to heart, if we let all the stuff that goes on rankle us, if presence of problems and absence of solutions anger or depress us, we will get nowhere near happy.

On the other hand, no! Our values, desires and ideas make us who we are. We should not sacrifice our integrity! Being happy may be much more important than being "right" in a petty argument. But what about major issues? Is being happy more important than fighting for our ideals, our ideas, our loved ones, our freedom, our rights, or our values?

Besides, even if we would rather be overall happy, would we be able to disengage from the things that are important to us? It may be rather easy to let go of non-essential things. But when the choice comes to deeply ingrained values, many tend to insist on being right.

So what's the solution? This is a tricky choice. As always, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

If we throw ourselves too much into either direction, we would be forgetting the other essential cornerstone of happiness - moderation. Without moderation every pleasure turns into suffering (see post Happiness vs. Pleasure), bravery turns into stupidity, loves turns into smothering, and the pursuit of happiness may turn into settling, indifference and apathy. It works the same way for the other extreme. If we do not let go of anything, take everything too close to heart, always fight to be right, we risk being miserable, emotionally wrecked and exhausted for the rest of our lives.

We need to sustain the right balance for absolutely everything we do, including contentment (see post on moderation).

It is important not to confuse contentment with complacency. Contentment does not mean inactivity. Being content does not mean settling and never wanting anything else because we are satisfied with the way things are. It means recognizing that even if we are not satisfied with what we presently have or what we presently are, it is sufficient to be grateful and joyful on the road to achieving our goals.

To get into this state of mind, we need to find the right proportion of not caring too much and not caring too little.

Taking a look at the life through the prism of our present understanding of happiness will put our goals in perspective. We may realize that some things we yearn for or fret about are not as overall important as we are used to think, whereas the meaningful things will remain meaningful.

The appraisal of what is meaningful is very personal. Some may want to impact the world, eliminate hunger, or invent flying cars. Others may want things that impact them personally, for example, see their kids graduate from college or quit smoking.

art by ~mole2k

So the compromise is to recognize which goals and ambitions are not essential for us and let them go, and which are important, and aspire toward them. But happiness is not an either/or proposition. It does not appear when we follow our dreams or when we settle for what we have. We should not put it on hold until we finally reach our goals. We should combine the desire to change something and the contentment with the present situation while we work on the change.

Surely, once we achieve our goals and turn the dreams into reality, we will be happy. But as often, our efforts may not come to fruition. The end results of our struggles may not be what we wished for. We should be ready for this outcome as well. Not getting something we want, even the noblest goal, should not disturb our mental state.

The happiness I discuss is the contentment with the process of life itself. The perspective, the balance of not completely giving ourselves over to some goal or idea, and not giving up on it entirely, either. It is being happy while working our way to it, and staying content and balanced whatever the result is.

So happiness is an intricate balance of being both content with what we have, but not settling or giving up on our dreams.

Look forward to your life. Know what your goals are and work to reach them. Just continue to be happy in the interim.