Happiness Myth No. 10: It's Selfish To Try to Be Happier.

As I've studied happiness over the past few years, I've learned many things that surprised me. Each day for last two weeks, I've been debunking one "happiness myth" that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Myth No. 9: Spending Some Time Alone Will Make You Feel Better.

Happiness Myth No. 10: The Biggest Myth -- It's Selfish and Self-Centered To Try to Be Happier.

Myth No. 10 is the most pernicious myth about happiness. It comes in a few varieties. One holds that "In a world so full of suffering, you can be happy only if you're callous and self-centered." Another one is "Happy people become wrapped up in their own pleasure; they're complacent and uninterested in the world."

Wrong. Studies show that, quite to the contrary, happier people are more likely to help other people, they're more interested in social problems, they do more volunteer work, and they contribute more to charity. They're less preoccupied with their personal problems. By contrast, less-happy people are more apt to be defensive, isolated, and self-absorbed, and unfortunately, their negative moods are catching (technical name: emotional contagion). Just as not eating your dinner doesn't help starving children in India, being blue yourself doesn't help unhappy people become happier.

I've certainly noticed this about myself. When I'm feeling happy, I find it easier to notice other people's problems, I feel that I have more energy to try to take action, I have the emotional wherewithal to tackle sad or difficult issues, and I'm not as preoccupied with myself. I feel more generous and forgiving.

As I've worked on my happiness project, one of my biggest intellectual breakthroughs was the identification of my Second Splendid Truth. There's a circularity to it that confused me for a long time. At last, one June morning, it came clear:

One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy;
One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.

Everyone accepts the first part of the Second Splendid Truth, but the second part is just as important. By making the effort to make yourself happier, you better equip yourself to make other people happier, as well. It's not selfish to try to be happier. In fact, the epigraph to the book The Happiness Project is a quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson: "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy."

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On a positive psychology listserv, I read comments by Professor Todd Kashdan, and I see he did an interesting study on the relationship of gratitude to happiness -- and how men are much less likely to feel and express gratitude than are women.

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Comments

[MikeDu]

I believe it was Mark Twayne who once said "The secret to happiness is to start that way." Happy people are happy. Brain-chemisty happy. I've never met a natually unhappy person who *became* happy through willpower. There are things a naturally happy person can become - resigned, content, reconsiles, even blissful. But not happy. Is it the Buddhists of Hindus who said the ultimate goal is not love or happiness, the ultimate goal is indifference.

[anywho]

Another dud Gretchen. Boring article, meaningless! Been done a thousand times.

[Arithrianos]

All of our energies are contagious, all actions of body,speech and mind create ripples that spread in the field of being of which all sentient beings are participants. Nothing at all is wasted, ever. This is both a blessing and a curse, and why the path of the Arhant is not the end, there is still the path of the Boddhisattva. Happiness is selfish, only to be really happy i must do my best to make sure all sentient beings are happy, since their energy is contagious.

[Heraklia]

Why do articles about happiness always show pictures of people jumping on trampolines?

Are trampolines suppossed to be the secret to happiness?

[rayoflight usa]

Have you ever seen a depressed person on a trampoline? I haven't. Everyone bouncing on a trampoline is happy... until they land on one of the metal springs and bust their head open.

[lewes17266]

funny

[cyranorox]

True, but lacking. The gravamen of seeking happiness is in the price: what are you doing to get it? if you are doing no harm, entertaining no hubris, duly attending to the claims of justice and charity, behaving honorably, etc, then there is no fault in seeking happiness, if indeed it remains to be sought. But, of course, the opposite is true as well.

[Mike Vardy]

Gretchen,

After going through your entry here, it reminded me of another Robert Louis Stevenson quote:

"All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer."

With this comment, you can rest assured you've found at least one. I know that makes you happy, and it makes me happy to oblige.

Mission accomplished.

Mike Vardy
www.effingthedog.com

[Bearangaria]

I always thought the best way to make other people happy
was to make other people happy...wh­ich can definitely
leave yourself out of the quotient IF what makes other people
happy is for you to be unhappy.
I think being happy with yourself is way better.

[kellygrrrl]

I personally find it kind of selfish and manipulative when people cling to their bitterness or martyrdom