Happiness is a highly subjective pursuit. Sometimes it eludes us like the butterfly in the garden. Sometimes, it is the pair of specs we search all around the house for while it is actually snuggly sitting on our nose. It is a universal pursuit where each one of us have different levels, methods and measurements of know how happy we are. To know what makes us truly happy, we need to see what the term happiness encompasses. By general consensus, most of us are chasing one or more of these to be happy :
- Good Grades
- Good Job
- True Love
- Material Delights
- Perfect Face and Body
Let us look at each of them one by one. Towards the end of this article, hopefully you will see how much miswanting (Yes! It is an actual term) is involved.
Miswanting
Miswanting has been defined by Tim Wilson and Dan Gilbert as ‘the act of being mistaken about what and how much you will like something in the future.’ Which goes to show that sometimes our strongest intuitions could actually be wrong. Like all the above said paramaters for happiness!
Do good grades bring true happiness?
Most of us would have experienced the familiar foreboding right before examination results. Was there any exam where you didn’t have an expected range of marks? Depending on how you did the exam, you expected high marks or average or low marks. And when the marks finally arrived, there must have been surely a few surprising times when it was not in the expected range (Eg – I did not do this exam well but got decent grades). Now think back to such situations – In all those situations how much did those grades affect you? Probably for a few days or few weeks after which you must have turned your focus towards the next upcoming exam or event. So do good grades truly make you happy? And for how long?
Does having a good job make you truly happy?
Be it grades or job and any of the above listed reasons to be truly happy, our minds are never completely satisfied. The simplest explanation for this is that the mind does not think in absolutes. It only knows to think in relative terms. That gives rise to a whole new level of social comparison and reference points.
The problem with this ‘good job’ is that the better you are at work, the more you expect in terms of salary. It is a cycle where you never really see the end. How much earnings can make you truly happy when you are running a rat race?
Researches show that the correlation between ‘life satisfaction’ and ‘income’ is not really strong once your basic and comfort needs are met. Money would actually mean more to you if you are actually struggling to meet necessities like these :
- Have three good meals a day
- Educate your children
- Build a good home
- Buy enough clothes
- Save for medical emergencies
Once your basic needs are met and you have a fairly comfortable life, life satisfaction through only money decreases. So does a good job truly make you happy?
Does true love make you happy?
I blame the media (especially bollywood) for feeding us these out-of-the-world notions about love and marriage. In reality the chances of getting a rich, handsome, understanding, emotionally available partner with good job and a palace with very few annoying relatives, who cares about you, is slim to none. We are talking about people with real emotions and core characteristics which might change with time. So, imagine you fall in love with a wonderful person and expect them to remain the same even after so many years, it is not going to happen. In that case, you fell in love with the idea of a perfect person instead of the person himself/herself.
True love is possible only if both the partners are willing to work for a lifetime for the love they share. If not, you are setting yourself up for a huge disappointment in the future because of the following factors:
- You change
- Your partner changes
- Your situation changes
True love is not constant to begin with. Two people find each other in good form and expect to grow from there as a pair into better form. But the responsibility lies with both the partners to make the effort. There are scientific researches that show that ‘newly married couple’ are in a relatively higher state of happiness. But after a couple of years, all married couples have similar scores of happiness. So does true love make you truly happy?
Do material comforts make you truly happy?
Material comforts are things that we believe would make us happier. The more we tend to buy things, the more we assume we are happy. But various studies establish that materialists have very stressful lives and are at a higher risk for mental disorders. They also have lesser life satisfaction compared to non-materialistic people. When compared to the generation of our grandparents our generation has a higher affluence but lesser happiness.
Only when your income is very low that even when your basic needs are threatened, your emotional well being comes into question. After you reach a certain standard of life, your emotional well being is not tied to your basic needs and hence it does not alter much. So does material comfort really bring happiness?
Perfect Face/Body
Everyone has a body part that they are not really comfortable with. But when you are upset to a level where you start comparing yourself with others constantly, it will take a toll on your confidence. Most people think that if they could correct the mistakes they see in the mirror (be it the body or face), it will guarantee them happiness.
Sorry to break your bubble, but studies show otherwise. In a simple weight loss-weight gain study, researchers found that people who lost weight were even more anxious after weight loss. They were anxious that the lost weight might reappear. And they were significantly unhappier after a few years. Similar results turned up in a cosmetic surgery research where people who opted for cosmetic surgery had even more negativity post their surgeries. So what do these studies show. Contrary to popular belief, having a perfect body or face does not make you happy for two major reasons. One – there is nothing called ‘perfect’. Two – Your reference points keep changing through out your lives. Which means you will be putting yourself through constant comparisons at some level.
Conclusion
All the happiness derived from the above said reasons are actually temporary. So you need to figure out what makes you truly happy in the first place and how to make that happy place sustainable. The kind of happy life everyone of us is seeking is only possible through our own intentional efforts towards things that really matter to our health and happiness. The Yale course calls it ‘rewirements’. You have to unlearn things you thought would make you happy and learn where true happiness comes from. Once you recognize that, then you should begin paying more attention to it. You will be surprised by how your life gets elevated just by making a few lifestyle adjustments and getting your basics about wellness right!
