HAPPINESS AND A HAPPY LIFE ARE NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME THING....
Here's my beef - that happiness and happy lives are not necessarily the same thing at all. And more importantly, I have the idea that Happiness is not something you should pursue in any case. Shocking? I'll explain.
You see, researchers use the notion of 'Subjective Well-Being' or SWB to measure happiness in their surveys. They ask questions like,
How happy have you felt over the last month? and
How satisfied are you with your life? You might give two very different answers to each of these questions. Others may not. It depends in part on what you think they mean.
Others have made this point too.
Recent research has also pointed out that Happiness and Meaningfulness are not the same thing.. which is kind of along the same lines. But I think there is a more fundamental problem. We have got the whole idea of happiness messed up. (The full paper is
here).
Here's my BIG IDEA: WHAT IF EVERYTHING THAT YOU THOUGHT WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY WERE
TOTALLY WRONG? Unlikely? Not so; in fact, it's very probable....
Professor of
psychology at Harvard, Daniel Gilbert wrote in his book Stumbling on Happiness that the single biggest obstacle to our
happiness is our natural inability to think accurately about the future.
Gilbert goes as far
as to accuse our brains of being “talented forgers”, fabricating a convincing
living story made up of nothing but memories and distorted perceptions. Happiness
is, by far, an “inside job.” I agree.
BUT there’s worse to
come. And this comes from my own experience of some twenty years working with
people to solve a myriad of life problems, and it’s this: HAPPINESS is JUST AN
EMOTION – a FEELING. And FEELINGS are
meant to be learnt from. They are the mind/body’s natural feedback signal –
just kike pain teaches you not to stick your finger in the fire.
SO WHAT DOES HAPPINESS SAY to us?
My idea is that Happiness says YOU ENJOYED THAT - something resonated with
you. AND HAPPINESS ASKS - WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THIS THAT MAKES IT SO GOOD? LEARN from it; what is it teaching
you about what matters in life to you? Where is it telling you to head - the
direction for more of what this was really about?
The bottom line: happiness is NOT the POINT of Life; rather, it is a POINTER IN LIFE. Sign up to my blog and get four free articles introducing my ideas on happiness; the Physics of Happiness.
but I'm a bit slow at it. So in the meantime, there is still a lot of stuff here worth looking up. And you can also find me at abetterlife-uk.com, where you can sign up for my happiness announcements! Yes please :) Keep in touch. Richard
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