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Some of us will remember the “Love Is …”cartoons from the 70’s. In case you cannot here is a refresher.
While growing up it seemed to me these cartoons were everywhere. I must admit that I found them very very confusing. I could not figure out what two naked children had to do with love, let alone grasp the meaning of the quotes?! While doing research for this blog I kept wondering what the cartoon version of “Happiness is …” would look like. You see, as with love, the concept of happiness seems obvious; yet incomprehensible when asked to define it. It is similar to those dreaded questions – “Who am I?”, or, “Tell me about yourself”.
Well if I look at the plethora of research conducted on the subject it seems as if happiness is in fact a hot topic and a concept well worth looking into. It seems to have a huge impact on the way we live our lives, how we live and work, interact with others and so forth.
Perhaps we should start to look at the root of the word happiness. According to Etymology Online, the word for “happy” in most languages came from the word for “lucky.” This suggests an interesting trend – perhaps our ancestors believed that happiness was largely a by-product of luck?
It also points to a possible difference of general opinion between earlier generations and our own 20th and 21st century generations: that happiness was not a vital factor in a good life, but essentially a bonus that some lucky individuals got to experience.
The author Darrin McMahon writes the following about the origins and root words of the word “happiness:”
“It is a striking fact that in every Indo-European language, without exception, going all the way back to ancient Greek, the word for happiness is a cognate with the word for luck. Hap is the Old Norse and Old English root of happiness, and it just means luck or chance, as did the Old French heur, giving us bonheur, good fortune or happiness. German gives us the word Gluck, which to this day means both happiness and chance” (McMahon, 2006).
It then seems, linguistically speaking, that happiness is the state of feeling or showing pleasure or contentment implying the following:
- Happiness is a state, not a trait – this simply means it is fleeting, changeable, not permanent, and definitely not a personality trait.
- Happiness is linked with feeling pleasure or contentment – this means that happiness is not to be confused with joy, ecstasy, bliss, or other more intense feelings.
- Happiness can be either feeling or showing – this means that happiness can be both an internal and an external experience.
If we look at the above it seems as if happiness is a head and heart concept. How we think and feel about something, someone, or a situation for example.
The “head” part of happiness seems to involve the concept pleasure. We often use the word pleasure when referring to happiness. “What gives me pleasure makes me happy and what makes me happy gives me pleasure”, we use these words interchangeably almost as synonyms. This is understandable but in psychological terms it is important to make a distinction between the two.
Happiness is a state. It is characterized by feelings of contentment and satisfaction with my life or current situation. It is a reasonably stable state and lasts longer than a feeling of joy. On the other hand, pleasure is a more in-the-moment experience and often can come and go in a matter of seconds. It often refers to the sensory-based feelings we get from experiences like eating good food, getting a massage, or receiving a compliment.
Pleasure can contribute to happiness, and happiness can enhance or deepen feelings of pleasure, but the two can also be completely mutually exclusive. For example, you can feel a sense of happiness based on meaning and engagement that has nothing to do with pleasure, or you could feel pleasure but also struggle with guilt because of it, keeping you from feeling happy at the same time.
As the quote from Baumeister and colleagues (2013) suggests, there are important distinctions between the methods of searching for and the benefits of experiencing happiness and meaning. Kaufman (2016) outlines these distinctions that Baumeister and his fellow researchers found between the two:
- Finding one’s life easy or difficult was related to happiness, but not meaning;
- Feeling healthy was related to happiness, but not meaning;
- Feeling good was related to happiness, not meaning;
- Scarcity of money reduced happiness more than meaning;
- People with more meaningful lives agreed that “relationships are more important than achievements;”
- Helping people in need was linked to meaning but not happiness;
- Expecting to do a lot of deep thinking was positively related to meaningfulness, but negatively with happiness;
- Happiness was related more to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaning was related more to being a giver than a taker;
- The more people felt their activities were consistent with the core themes and values of their self, the greater meaning they reported in their activities;
- Seeing oneself as wise, creative, and even anxious were all linked to meaning but had no relationship (and in some cases, even showed a negative relationship) to happiness (Kaufman, 2016).
Basically, although the two overlaps and each can contribute to the experience of the other, the two can be mutually exclusive (Baumeister et al., 2013).
So, it seems that happiness consists of “head” and “heart” aspects. What we think and what we feel. The person, the self, is therefore important in happiness. A popular term seems to be self-happiness. Although the term is not used very often, “self-happiness” refers to a sense of happiness or satisfaction with one’s self. It is often associated with self-confidence, self-esteem, and other concepts that marry “the self” with feeling content and happy.
In general, it means that you are pleased with yourself and your choices, and with the person that you are.
Nevertheless, I am sure many reading this article will say, “That’s all fair and well but so what? Is it possible to learn to be happier?”
If we look at research the answer is yes, we can. It seems as if in order to improve our overall happiness we simply have to (a) focus on improving our health, (b) work on developing and maintaining high-quality relationships, and overall, (c) find ways to incorporate more positive feelings into our daily lives. This does assume basic access to safety as well as social equality.
I would like to conclude with some findings of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. The findings of this study summarise the above. Robert Waldinger an imminent psychiatrist and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, states that happiness is one of the most important things in life, yet it is also one of the hardest to study.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development is one of the longest and most complete studies of adult life ever conducted. Waldinger described some of the secrets to happiness revealed by the study in a recent TED talk (see link below).
The study followed two cohorts of white men for 75 years, starting in 1938:
- 268 Harvard sophomores as part of the “Grant Study” led by Harvard psychiatrist George Vaillant
- 456 12- to 16-year-old boys who grew up in inner-city Boston as part of the “Glueck Study” led by Harvard Law School professor Sheldon Glueck
The researchers surveyed the men about their lives (including the quality of their marriages, job satisfaction, and social activities) every two years and monitored their physical health (including chest X-rays, blood tests, urine tests, and echocardiograms) every five years.
The study points to three key lessons about happiness:
- Close relationships
The men in both groups of the Harvard study who reported being closer to their family, friends, or community tended to be happier and healthier than their less social counterparts. They also tended to live longer. By comparison, people who said they were lonelier reported feeling less happy. They also had worse physical and mental health, as defined above.
A 2014 review of dozens of studies published in the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass suggests that loneliness can get in the way of mental functioning, sleep, and well-being, which in turn increases the risk of illness and death.
- Quality (not quantity) of relationships
It is not just being in a relationship that matters. The Harvard study found that individuals in “high conflict” marriages (married couples who said they argued constantly and had low affection for one another) were actually less happy than people who were not married at all.
Additionally, it seems that the effect of relationship quality seems to depend somewhat on age. A 2015 study published in the journal Psychology and Aging that followed people for 30 years found that the number of relationships people had was, in fact, more important for people in their 20s, but the quality of relationships had a bigger effect on social and psychological wellbeing when people were in their 30s.
- Stable, supportive marriages
The Harvard study also found a link between being socially connected to others and a reduction in mental decline. People who were married without having divorced, separating, or having “serious problems” until age 50 performed better on memory tests later in life than those who were not, the Harvard study found.
A 2013 study in the journal PLOS ONE supports the above. The study found that marriage, among other factors, was linked to a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia.
All of this suggests that strong relationships are critical to our health.
Society places a lot of emphasis on wealth and “leaning in” to our work, Waldinger said. “But over and over, over these 75 years, our study has shown that the people who fared the best were the people who leaned in to relationships, with family, with friends, with community.”
And there we have it. Happiness is important, it is not a question of luck but something we can develop and harness if we work at it. The best ways to do this seem to be to
- focus on improving our health,
- work on developing and maintaining high-quality relationships, and
- find ways to incorporate more positive feelings into our daily lives.
Shawn Achor – The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance TEDTalk from TEDx Talks
Positive Psychology – Happier by Professor Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D. from FightMediocrity
How to be Happy – The Science of Happiness and Feeling Positive in Life from Memorize Academy
The Surprising Science of Happiness TED Talk by Dan Gilbert from TED
How to Be Happy – The Secret of Authentic Happiness – Martin Seligman from Practical Psychology