Conceptualize Happiness

Art by ~ghettojack

Often it feels that we are in such a hurry to become happier, that we forget to stop and think what "happiness" is, and what it means to us. 

The very first step to lasting happiness is to formulate what it is and what it isn’t.

Each of us is different. We perceive the world differently. Our five senses, our physical experiences, spiritual experiences, our  mental processes and emotions are different. 

On the physical level, we are different on the outside, which is pretty obvious by our looks, as well as on the inside (which sometimes is less obvious, but nonetheless, very true). We perceive and relate to the smell, the sound, the touch, the sight, and the taste individually. For example, each of us experiences pain differently: some endure it, others cannot tolerate it at all, some bear it silently, others moan and yell. Our attitude to pain is different as well. Some find it unpleasant but tolerable, while others fear it and will go to great length to avoid it, whereas others find pleasure in it. Such difference of perception happens with any physical experience.

The same individuality applies to our spiritual, intellectual, moral and emotional functions. When we read the same book or watch the same movie, we each pay attention to different cues, and arrive to slightly (or vastly) different conclusions. One may like it, another love it passionately and want to re-read it or watch it again,  the third one resent it, the forth one will not be able to get past the first chapter/ten minutes, and someone else might find it boring and forget it in a week. 

We love differently, we grieve differently, we think differently, we memorize differently. We hold different notions of kindness, beauty, good and evil. By the same token, there is no universal notion of happiness. It is a general term for something that we experience distinctly and dissimilarly to others. 

Therefore, we should not try to emulate the displays of happiness that we see in other people or on television and movies. If you are not the smiley, bouncy type, do not think that you are less happy because you do not laugh out loud when something nice happens to you. Happiness may be experienced in different ways - it can be loud, fun, cheerful, gay, merry, hilarious or it can be quiet, contemplative, insightful, content, peaceful. We can feel it differently at different times and the way we experience happiness may change with age.

Do not expect to naturally react to life similarly to your heroes, parents, or friends. And do not expect or insist that your children react to things the same way as you do. They are different inside the same way they look differently or have different fingerprints than you.

To be able to control things, we should be able to conceptualize them. For many centuries, humans did not understand the nature and causes of various diseases. Therefore, they were believed to be divine punishment, similar to other phenomena, such as thunder, lightning, or eclipse. Now in many cases we have a better understanding of disease processes, what they are and what causes them, and we can control them better by prevention or treatment.

So, to be happy let us first conceptualize what we think happiness is.  If we do not have a good idea about what it is, we cannot move toward it, and we will not recognize that we may already have it. We will have to include some things, and to exclude others.

Exercises:

Below are exercises that are focused on the theory of happiness. It may take a lot of time to understand what is right for you, incorporating what you learned from this blog and from your own experience. The theory may never be complete. It changes and evolves as do you, your personality, and your understanding.

Exercise 1:

Think about your emotional response to the state of happiness. How do you know when you are happy? What do you feel when you know you are happy?

·         elation

·         intensity

·         calm

·         serenity

·         smile

·         laugh

·         cry with tears of joy

·         satisfaction

·         pleasure

·         self esteem

·         peacefulness

·         other - list them for yourself

Ask yourself:

When you are happy, do you feel the emotion for a short time, or does it last for a long time?

If happiness means elation and pleasure, do you consider yourself no longer happy when these feelings subside?

What does it mean to you to be a happy person in a long term? What feeling or emotion do you need to have to know that your entire life if happy? 

When you wish to be happier, or for you loved ones to be happier, what do you have in mind?

Exercise 2: 

Decide what happiness has always meant to you. Make a list. You can use some of these:

·         Just being alive

·         Relationships

·         Good education

·         Children

·         Health

·         Being physically attractive, being beautiful

·         Financial status

·         Possessions

·         Doing what you love

·         Having great career

·         Peer approval and popularity

·         Good entertainment (computer games, movies, music, electronic media, etc.)

·         Country living

·         City living

·         Relaxing

·         Being busy

·         Taking care of others

·         Feeling the care of others

·         Just feeling good about life

·         Contentment

·         Add anything else

Do not try to include things that you think are appropriate or constitute the "right answer". This exercise is not for anybody's judgment, it is just for you, for your own understanding. So just pick whatever you always wanted in order to be happy.

Look at the above list carefully.  Ask yourself:

Are these things that ultimately make you happy or are they your goals in life? (our goals in life do not necessarily overlap with our happiness). 

Are they mostly important for your success or for your own well-being and happiness?

If you do not achieve them, will you still be able to be happy?  

If you do achieve them, are you pretty much guaranteed to have happiness ever after?

Do you already have some of the things on the list?

Do most of the things on your list depend on outside circumstances or your own attitude?
  
Does it seem unreasonable to you to feel happy for no particular reason?

How would you explain happiness to your children? What attitude do you want to instill in them?

Based on the above reflections (which may take a minute, a day or months), decide if you want to add or subtract something from your list above to clarify your concept of happiness.

And remember that the state of happiness originates, develops and exists inside of us, from our state of mind, from our attitude toward the world around us. It does not originate from outside. Things happen, or do not happen. We are the ones who react to them in different ways.

Now we can recognize our individual sources of happiness and our unique reactions to them. Therefore, we have a better sense of what our happiness is and a better control of it.

Exploring Happiness Pre-requisites: Success

 

I continue exploring the commonly agreed upon major pre-requisites for happiness.

 

 



art by ~dhuusaraH

"There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way."                                                                                                 ~Christopher Morley

For a long time in our culture happiness is closely intertwined with success. It's like it is a two way door, and happiness and success are the keys to the other side: being successful is the key to being happy. It works the other way around as well:  happiness is the key to success. Once we get one of them, they should form a loop - becoming more successful begets happiness, which begets more success, which results in more happiness.

So where do the successful but unhappy people fit in? How many news reports we've heard about successful millionaire businessmen committing suicide, or successful and loved celebrities checking in psychiatric facilities? Surely they don't do it from the overabundance of happiness in their lives.

Our society places a big emphasis on its definition of success. Whatever we do, we have to be successful. And we do not allow for moderation in this area. If we do not want to succeed, why do anything to begin with? And once we have succeeded, it is unwise to stop. We are taught to never stop, to push for more.

But when there is no moderation, any good thing starts to turn into something else.

Success is such a wonderful, optimistic, happy concept! It challenges us to reach more. It rewards us with feelings of joy, satisfaction, self-worth, self-respect. And it often results in better life conditions. But being stressed too much, it produces opposite effects. Optimism becomes pessimism that nothing is ever enough, and majority of us will not achieve what we set out for. Happiness turns into despair for being a failure. Healthy incentive transforms into sickening stress, and excitement becomes anxiety.

If we follow a cause and effect logic, we will easily see the reason for such gap between what success stands for and how it actually impacts our lives. Success is the attainment of our goals. If our goal is to be a healthy person, then success is to lose weight, quit smoking and take up exercise. If our goal is to be a happy person, then success is to smile, to enjoy life, to be at piece with the world, the ability to be in charge of our attitude. If the goal is to be affluent, then success means becoming wealthy, getting a big house and designer cloths. Our society glorifies competition-based success – becoming better then others, more beautiful than others, more popular than others, more powerful than others, and of course richer than others.

This success “competition” starts earlier with every generation. The little ones are expected to pass tests to enter better pre-schools. There are more moms that put their precious tiny three and four-year olds in additional reading classes, math classes, music classes, any kinds of classes. Kids this age are often not yet capable of really benefitting from this education. Sometimes we make them go against their will. Why? Because we know better. Because we hope it will give then an early start, and they will be able to go to good colleges down the line. We believe it will give them the tools to become more successful in adult life. Mostly, because we are just caught up in this success-oriented thinking and we want to teach it to our kids as soon as possible.

Older kids are stressed even more to go to lots of different afterschool activities and have a shelf full of medals and awards to show for them.

Teenagers are under more stress. Not only they have to be smart, athletic, and popular, they also need to be involved in romantic relationships, or else they are made to feel like failures.  It is an unforgiving competition of who has the largest number of “friends” on social networking and who has got the most boyfriends/girlfriends and what they have already done with them.

Success is not merely suggested. It is demanded of all of us. Professional athletes are not considered successful if they did not win the first place.  It is amazing to see some athletes who look sad or even ashamed to have won second or third place in a major competition.

Some of us set even stricter requirement for themselves. People who are plenty successful by society norms are still unhappy, because they demand more of themselves. They rarely feel contentment and satisfaction. They still feel they are not doing well enough. That sort of expectations is even harder to overcome, because it comes from ourselves.

We have to succeed. We get inspired by hearing that "some people dream of success while others make it happen". We have to climb the social and carrier ladders even if it kills us (and sometimes it does). But the final destination is worth it. After we reach our goals, and became successful by the standards of society, we get to be happy. We finally deserve it. Oh, sweet success.

Sadly, it takes a long time to reach the level of success expected of truly successful people. And often, when we finally reach our goals and become successful as we understand it, after we experience elation, we may suddenly feel empty. If there are no bigger goals and nothing to strive for anymore, then by definition, there will be no success in the future. This is a shock for those who are so used to moving towards the generally accepted aims.

The society preaches and praises success, but it does not preach the idea of “enough”. Successful entrepreneurs are expected to become millionaires, while successful millionaires should become multi-millionaires, and so on. It just feels wrong if they maintain the same level of wealth and not work on making more.

This competitive culture in business, social and emotional spheres thwarts the essence of real happiness - contentment. How can anyone be content, when so much is expected of them, and it is always anticipated to do a little better, to reach a little higher?

These heightened expectations and judgment on who is successful and who is not render many in the “not” section, feeling somehow lacking. But in line with society expectations, which insist on being cheerful, we often feel obliged to keep the fake smiles. “Fake it till you make it”. And after all the necessary social functions are over, lots of smiling people go home and take their antidepressive medications.

Generally, we do not feel content enough until we reach the goal. Unfortunately, we forget that the happiness of achieving tends to be short term. We disregard the long-term kind of happiness - the happiness of striving, of acting on our dreams, on bettering ourselves. We keep our eyes so fixed on the target, that we forget to enjoy the process itself.

 

To be happily successful, first we must decide what our most important goals are in life. They may or may not coincide with the commonly lauded goals, or be a combination. Even though true happiness rarely results from possessions, social status or any other outside factors, we should not limit our goals solely to possessing a peaceful and joyful attitude toward any outcome. If we like what society has to offer, we should go for it!

Once we decide what is most meaningful to us, we will not feel so stifled and stressed by the societal pressures, as we will determine our own happiness pre-requisites. While we spend our lives getting what we want, we should keep the desire to succeed strong enough to spur us on but not too strong to cause a breakdown. And keep in mind that success is not only what is achieved, but what we had to do to get there.

Good Luck!