How to be Happier?

We all want to be happier. But we keep doing the exact things that make us unhappier.

We Misunderstand Happiness

Many of us think happiness equals to excitement, pleasure, or that buzzy feeling we get when something awesome happens. We don't understand that’s only one kind of "happiness".

There’s a difference between:

• Dopamine rushes: When you win a game, eat ice cream, or get a like on your post, it feels good, but the feeling fades very quickly.

• Emotional highs: The intense great feeling from things like winning a national championship or getting into your dream school. Amazing, but still temporary.

• Calm, steady well-being: Like feeling safe and warm in the heart while spending time with family, being proud of your hard work, or knowing you’re doing something meaningful by helping a friend in need. It’s quieter and not flashy but it lasts.

Psychologists call this the difference between "hedonic happiness" (pleasure) and "eudemonic happiness" (sense of meaning and fulfillment). Both types of happiness matter - but we often chase the first type and ignore the second. This is problematic. Life can't be fireworks all the time and if we're terrible at finding meaning and fulfillment, we're guaranteed to feel disappointed, bored, and empty.

We Want to Be Happy All the Time

Trying to feel happy 24/7 is pointless and dangerous. Why?

First, your brain resets. There’s a psychological concept called hedonic adaptation: no matter how good or bad you feel at a moment, your emotions eventually return to a baseline. That’s why even after experiencing something extremely awesome, the excitement and happy feeling fade, and you go back to feeling “normal" - the baseline. Research has proved that this inevitably happens to all of us, including those winning multi-million dollar lotteries.

Second, life happens - good days come; bad days come. It’s out of our control. As a result, good feelings and bad feelings are just part of being human. They come in a combo. No matter how much we dislike it, we just can't avoid bad days or bad feelings. Yet, we still hold on to the good ones and fight the bad ones. Unfortunately, research shows that resisting negative emotions only makes them stronger. And when we believe we should be happy all the time, we end up feeling bad for feeling bad, and this creates a loop: I’m not happy → I must be broken → now I feel even worse. On the other hand, studies also show that accepting negative emotions helps them pass more quickly and makes room for positive ones. So, if you’re feeling unhappy now and don’t want to stay stuck there longer than necessary, allow yourself to feel it. Just let the unhappy feelings be. Like the Ancient One said to Stephen Strange (before he became Dr. Strange), “Surrender,” and see what happens.

We Look for Happiness in the Wrong Places

We think happiness comes from getting more stuff, looking a certain way ("I wish I had that jaw line."), getting attention or approval ("I'm popular!" "I'm getting so many likes!"), hitting life goals ("I'll be happy if I get that scholarship!").

But studies show that these things only give us a short-term boost - the brain resets to the baseline, remember? Then we adapt and want more. So we become hamsters running on the hedonic treadmill. We keep running but get no where.

How to Become Happier?

Now that we know the different types of happiness and how we shouldn't try to be happy 24/7, is there anything that we can and should do? Absolutely!

Research has found that meaning-based happiness (eudemonic happiness) is determined by different things than pleasure-based happiness and these things are also more sustainable. So, to increase our chance of being happy, we’ll be better off focusing on pursuing meaning.

What brings meaning? Well, it varies from person to person. Here are some examples: volunteering for a good cause, creating something new (e.g., work of art, music, a story), building a strong relationship with someone, achieving personal growth (e.g., learning a new language, taking on leadership roles). In contrast, things that bring us pleasure? Video games, new clothes, food, vacations, etc. - you can still enjoy them, but just be careful not to depend on them to feel good.

Now, do you see why meaning-based happiness is more sustainable? The contributing factors all come from ourselves! They are within our control.

A few more words...

I want to leave you with a few words from Man’s Search for Meaning, a must-read by Viktor Frankl, a psychologist, philosopher, and a Holocaust survivor. “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue… as the unintended side effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”

Frankl is not asking all of us to be war heroes, world leaders, or great philanthropists. He was telling us that happiness isn’t something that can be chased. It’s something that appears naturally when we’re doing things that are meaningful to us.

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References

Baselmans, B. M. L., & Bartels, M. (2018). A genetic perspective on the relationship between eudaimonic and hedonic well-being. Scientific Reports, 8, Article 14610. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32638-1

Lucas, R. E. (2007). Adaptation and the set-point model of subjective well-being: Does happiness change after major life events? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(2), 75–79. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00479.x

Mauss, I. B., Tamir, M., Anderson, C. L., & Savino, N. S. (2011). Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness. Emotion, 11(4), 807–815. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022010

Pattakos, A., & Dundon, E. (2015). The OPA! Way: Finding joy & meaning in everyday life & work. BenBella Books.

Tzeses, J. (2021, November 9). Why pursuing happiness makes us miserable. HealthCentral. https://www.healthcentral.com/article/why-pursuing-happiness-makes-us-miserable

Whittlestone, J. (2022, July 21). Everything you think you know about happiness is wrong. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/21/everything-you-think-you-know-about-happiness-is-wrong