Do you overemphasize happiness?
I think I'm over the happiness thing. I think I am thinking that the pursuit of happiness is, well, vacuous. I don't think people are happy or unhappy. Because I think knowing if we are happy would require knowing the meaning of life, or the ultimate goal, or the key to the world, or something that, which really, we are not going to find outside of blind religious fanaticism.
The first thing I have to grapple with, besides having spent the last three years of my life completely enthralled and ensconced in the happiness research from positive psychologists, is if I don't want a happy life, what sort of life do I want?
I think I want an interesting life. Not that I want to be interesting, but I want to be interested. I’m talking about what I think is interesting to me. I want to choose things that are interesting to me over things that would make me happy. For example, this post. I am not sure if I’m right on this, and I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of telling me I’m an idiot in the comments. But it’s going to be interesting.
I think choosing a life that is interesting to us and choosing a life that makes us feel happy are probably very different choices.
For one thing, people who are happy do not look for a lot of choices, according to Barry Schwartz, in his book, The Paradox of Choice. People who want to have an interesting life are always looking for more choices and better choices, and they make decisions for their life based on maximizing choices.
I think this because I've lived in NYC, where people value having a wide range of choices and opportunities over having a life that makes them feel happy. When it comes to self-reporting happiness, New Yorkers report being less happy than everyone else, and they don’t care. And I've lived in Wisconsin, where, I'm not kidding about this, almost everyone will tell you they are happy. But you can trust me on this, Wisconsin does not offer a lot of choices and opportunities.
Now I'm going to preemptively rip on everyone who thinks they are going to comment here about Wisconsin. Wisconsin does have things that are world-class: Football, beer, cheese, PETA-inflaming bioscience departments. And there is nothing wrong with being fine with what is here. I think it is a nice life, and that's why I moved to Wisconsin.
But on balance, Wisconsin is not a place you go to get the best of everything, which is what optimizers do. New Yorkers love that they can get the best of everything – they want that more than they want to be happy. And if you can't understand this you merely reveal how little you know about the world. I have no more patience for people telling me I can get great eyebrows in Wisconsin, there is great shopping in Wisconsin, etc. There simply isn't. And it's okay. People don't live in Wisconsin because of that. People live in Wisconsin because the lifestyle is easy — family is here, personal history is here, things generally are fine. Nothing is fine in NYC. It's very challenging. Every single day.
The fact that I feel compelled to have a tirade about Wisconsin in the middle of this post is interesting to me: People who value choices over happiness never argue about it. They are proud of it. People who value happiness over having a life full of interesting opportunities get indignant over being accused that they made that choice.
I wish I could tell you I am a person who picks interesting over complacency, but problem for me is that life in NYC is so interesting to me, but it’s just plain too hard for me. When I lived in NYC with two kids the year I had $200,000 coming in, I felt like I was living at the edge of poverty. Whenever I write this, people who have lived in NYC with kids are not surprised at all, and people who have not lived in NYC think I'm crazy. So please, if you have not raised kids in NYC, do not comment that you could easily do it on $200,000, okay?
What this illustrates, though is how different the world of lots of choices is. People will pay a ton of money to have a lot of choices, which is what they perceive as an interesting life. (See the average rent per square foot in NYC) but people will not pay a ton of money for a life with relatively few choices. (See the average rent per square foot in Madison). This makes me think that people put a higher premium on choices, because choices make life more interesting.
I recently spoke to Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University. His book, Create Your Own Economy, is about how the information flow of the Internet allows us to manage our careers differently than before. For example, people who are focused on information (infovores, as Tyler calls them) but not on face-to-face social interaction can flourish in an information economy.
I suggested to Tyler that it's messed up to value information processing over social interaction because I want to believe that it's social interaction that actually makes us happy.
Tyler says that people who are infovores feel fulfilled by processing information. And he thinks that happiness is an elusive, amorphous goal. Tyler says feeling fulfilled actually gives us a feeling of happiness, and some people gain that fulfilled feeling through interaction with information rather than social interaction (makes sense from Tyler – he writes a great blog, full of fun information.)
But it scares me that this also seems true for me. I don’t want it to be true for me because I want to be as complacent as the people I live with, in Wisconsin. And I want to be a socially skilled as the non-Asperger’s people I try to pass for in regular life.
Tyler’s ideas will resonate in the Asperger community. There is a large contingency that sees Asperger Syndrome not as a deficit but as merely a difference, and these are the people who would love to hear that the idea of happiness is myopic and that fulfillment is a more real goal, and people with Asperger's can feel fulfilled through information processing.
I'm not sure I buy that. I want to buy it. Because I have Asperger's and so do many people in my family, and I want to believe there is fulfillment out there for all of us.
First of all, good job Penelope. One of your best postings in my oppinion. But whats even better as the post itself are the great comments, written by all your readers. It really has lit up my horizon.
If you are not seeking happiness then there is no meaning to your existence. There is a meaning to life and it brings happiness. Seeking happiness in the good things of life is very rewarding – like raising children. Money cannot buy happiness yet that is what advertising would have us believe. Happiness comes from within and is a motivating force for good.
I think this is exactly what i was looking for on the subject….thank you very much indeed for your great post and keep it up! :)
“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”
– Ayn Rand
I just feel that happiness is not a constant state .. Moreover nothing is ideal. When you miss out on certain things you try to chase after those elements only to realise that the previous state was much the same or maybe even better.
At some level I feel it is also important to crave, to envy as it may lead you to unknown and unexplored pastures if not the greener ones!
Didn’t you know? We native Wisconsinites have naturally great eyebrows.
‘Best’ does not always have to mean ‘most expensive’, or most interesting. Sometimes, your best moment can be sitting in a dingy bar, drinking a $3 beer and eating a $5 burger.
Think about this for a minute. It’s January-February. We haven’t seen the sun consistently for weeks, maybe months in Wisconsin. I used to live in Milwaukee. I went to work everyday in the dark. I trudged through the snow to my car to drive home in the dark. I went bonkers – I was in my late 20s, and called my mommy everyday! I went back home where I could walk in the cold all bundled up with the sun on my face. A whole lot of evidence is being discovered about how many diseases are caused by lack of sunlight, and vitamin D. Let’s all lighten up, and go for a walk everyday at lunchtime, opening up our coats and turning our faces to the sun. Do some reading about it. Be here now.
Usually I enjoy reading your posts, Penelope, whether or not I agree with them. I like how you take a personal topic seemingly unrelated to career, and somehow create an engaging story and make it work. Not this time, though. This jumbled post seems like either (a) it was a draft posted by accident or (b) it was written solely to provoke a storm of comments. Which it did. I mean, really, are you serious in saying you don’t want to be happy? And that a happy life can’t be interesting? I don’t buy it.
You can choose to be happy.Happiness is not something that “happens” to you. You choose it by deciding to accepting where you are in the moment and being okay with that. Only then, if you want to, can you change where you “are”.
It doesn’t matter what the circumstances of your life are, you can choose happiness in the moment. Being sad and happy at the same time is entirely possible. Happy is different than contentment, different than exhilaration, different than approving/approval.
The thing about happiness is that it is largely different for everyone. One of the ways you can pursue happiness is to discover what your strengths are and do things that call to those strengths. I am also a big believer in Positive Psychology and have found two assessments that help you find those strengths. http://www.strengthsfinder.com and http://www.authentichappiness.org Either way you can’t lose.
I read your post a few times. I kept looking for some sort of definition of happiness, but then I realized it (it being what I refer to as happiness) might be one of those things that is what you make it to be. The part where you discussed “choices” was my favorite part. I’d like to see a whole post on how there are sometimes what seems to be too many choices in various aspects of some things. Anyway, thank you for your post — I loved the way humor/lightheartedness bubbled through your article!
I was always amazed by people who just seem to float through life receiving all the blessing and seeming to always fall into lucky situations. I had friends that were already well off win the lottery, or hit it big in Vegas or land incredible jobs. Their cups seemed to always overflow and I marveled at their accomplishments. It had nothing to do with education. It was not a matter of being “connected” and knowing the right person. There was one defining pattern in all these people…it was their attitude.
Never did I hear them complain or worry (out loud for that matter). They always expected the best to happen and it did. Even when bad times fell on them, I found them always in good spirits and like clockwork, everything that they seemed to loose was restored back and then some.
Then it began to dawn on me that we as a society always focus on the results thinking they come in absence of something else. That sounds like such an absurd statement, but how many of you believe today that you will be happy after you make a lot of money. Or you will believe you can accomplish something after you do it. Or my personal favorite, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” The truth is there is no such thing as luck, everybody makes their own luck, good or bad. Things only happen when you believe they can happen.
How many times, have I heard people say “I can’t do it” or “It will never happen to me.” Well they are absolutely right. If they expect they can’t, then they won’t. I am not saying, believing will bring you an instant victory. Much like when we all learned to ride bikes as children, we fell over and maybe skinned our knees. The difference in believing “you can” will make you try again instead of walking away and accepting defeat. Mistakes and setbacks are just a part of the learning process…learn from them and they will never happen again.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as coincidences. We live in a world of constant cause and effect and it is no coincidence that people who think positive have positive things happen to them. Just as well, people who think negative thoughts have negative things happen to them. Problem is many people just do not know that they are doing it to themselves. If they took the time to monitor their thoughts, they would be amazed to see there was no coincidence in the outcomes at all. True happiness is within everyone’s grasp.
Skeptical? So was I, till it started to work…Honestly, what do you have to lose?
Again, what do we mean by happiness? I’m happy right now. I’m in my favorite chair. Music is playing on my new sound system. I had a burrito for lunch. But is my every dream fulfilled? Hardly. Am I happy? at the moment yes.
I think the biggest variable, is peoples perception of happiness. People in Wisconsin may be happier than New Yorkers because of their surroundings. People in country areas tend to be happier with less personal belongings than people from cities do. In the cities, it’s all about money; everywhere you look, people are making money and spending money, so you are trained to believe that is what is most important.
To me, to be happy or not to be happy is a personal choice. I’ve learnt that I can achieve happiness or contentment in any given moment by not sweating the small stuff, by not giving too much attention to others’ opinions about how I should live my life, by listening to my own inner emotional guidance and always trying to find relief to make me feel better than the moment before in any given awkward situation.
I believe to find happiness you must know the purpose of life first, which most people don’t know. Most people live life to grow, work, start family, make money and die, if that is all your purpose of life then you wont find happiness as life will be too monotonic. I find the purpose of life in the bible, well explained in a book called “What does the Bible Really Teach” published by the Watchtower organization but not for sale and i am not selling you anything here.
Happiness is a state of mind. It is not something to be achieved, it is not some kind of
exotic fruit that you have to taste in order to find it. Some people find happiness in the
simplicity of their everyday lives and some people does not find happiness even when
their lives are full of challenges and interesting things. Most people find such kind of life
empty and depressing.
Anyone can find fulfillment and challenge in everyday life, if he shows enough interest
in his own life. Acceptance of your own limitations and living your life within your
limitations will not limit the challenges, but it will give you contentment and happiness.
Achievers are seldom happy. They are always in pursuit of something beyond their grasp.
They are always interested in something that challenges their abilities. They are never
content, and seldom have a personal or family life. They cannot live a simple life. They
always have something to do, something to find out, something to experience. That is
their life, that is their choice.
Life is about choices, true. And happiness is one of the choices offered to us in life. It is
up to us to make the choice, but we can't have everything!
I have to agree with your comments about Wisconsin. I love Wisconsin, grew up there, lived 36 years there, and the two years I lived in New Orleans were much better in my mind, because they were more interesting.
Now, I live in Portland, OR. I consciously chose interesting over comfortable. I’m still comfortable, but my life has gotten a LOT more interesting.
The old Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times."
I scored a 0 on your happiness/interesting quiz. Not sure what that means, but it is probably accurate. Welcome to WI. I live in Prairie du Sac, WI and make trips to places like NY to get my energy fixes. It’s manageable and I love my life. Hope you enjoy it here too.
“And this is the main question I’ve been asking you for the past two years, and I still haven’t gotten a straight answer. ”
This is an interesting way of looking at Penelope’s blog, because it assumes that she knows the answer to everything – such as, can all people with a certain diagnosis find fulfillment – and if she doesn’t “give a straight answer” it means she is withholding information.
Penelope, are you God? Just give me a straight answer!
As one door closes another one opens, adapting to change contributes to being the main factor in my happiness
This post along with the comments has been very enlightening for me. Last summer I had experienced the elusive “true happiness” for the first time, after 18 years of living. I wasn’t sure if it had been the first time or if it would be the last time in my life that i would feel that way, or if it was even happiness. But i have been unable to attain that state of mind since the approximate one month it lasted. After that experience, the only nonphysical goal in my life has been to get that feeling of happiness back.
It had nothing to do with any major events occurring in my life; I was very engaged in my life with no obligations such as school or work, but each day was hardly exciting. From an outside point of view, each day was dull and quite repetitive, considering the vast freedom i had. That was just it, however: the freedom i had took away a lot of everyday “stress”, whether or not i knew that stress was there before.
The feeling was incredibly distinct–so distinct that i had told myself I’m happy almost every day during that period lest i forget in the future that i was once happy. It is euphoric, and i recall it as being a state of mind that can only be called one thing, happy.
Perhaps i am a simpleton. Perhaps i am one of those people who is only able to experience happiness sporadically in short bursts due to my retardation of brain growth or whatever other reason. I just wanted to share that happiness does exist in some form, however elusive, and i only discovered that i had been unhappy for 18 years upon discovering this sensation.
The thing about this post that confused me is the comparison of happiness with interestingness. I think the choice of an interesting life as a comparison is about as arbitrary as sex life or income. All three are factors that may contribute to one’s level of happiness, but, used as a replacement for happiness, they do not make much sense as a measure of overall life enjoyment, for most people.