What's With This Happiness Thing?

It seems like everyone is talking about happiness.

There is the feature story in the current issue of The Atlantic ("What Makes Up Happy"), describing a 72-year longitudinal study of Harvard men and their search for "a happy life" (www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/happiness). And here comes "The Happiness Project," a personal quest, turned blog, turned memoir, by one determined young woman to test every theory of happiness ever expounded (www.happiness-project.com). And how about, "Happiness Now," an 8-week program designed by a British Shrink? Do we think that works? The list goes on: no fewer than 386,032 books are on Amazon with "happiness" in the title; not to mention the 77 million Google entries on the same subject.

What's this about? Are we more preoccupied with the idea of happiness because it is more elusive? Or do we simply have higher expectations than ever before? Did the bottom falling out of the economy make us reconsider our priorities? Is happiness the new way we keep score?

Boomers, more than preceding generations, have thought of happiness as an entitlement. Whereas our parents saw it as a possibility, we saw it as our birthright--a belief that somehow, a perpetual state of joy (or near bliss) was accessible if only we played our cards right. And we did try nearly everything from recreational drugs to consciousness-raising to EST and Transcendental Meditation to psychiatry and serious pharmaceuticals. We pursued happiness religiously for ourselves, and worried through every developmental stage for our kids. It is the rare boomer who is passive about their own pursuit of happiness, and the unusual parent who doesn't try to ameliorate what looks like unhappiness in their child.
Maybe we are all nuts.

Jeff: I'm convinced that we really used to believe that we were only a few purchases away from happiness. Or that another couple of zeroes on our bank balance would make all the difference. And if this purchase didn't make us light up, well, the next one was surely the missing piece in our happiness puzzle. In other words, for so many of us, happiness was inextricably linked to prosperity.

Paula: Yes, but the generation that invented Retail Therapy also somewhere knew that money doesn't buy happiness. There has always been a kind of paradox on that subject. It is as though we know that consumer goals are not the most important human goals, but, at least, they were clearly defined.

Jeff: A much easier game than the confusing and even painful process of delineating complex personal goals and growth.

Paula: So, you think that this current focus on happiness is a direct reaction to these tough economic times?

Jeff: Absolutely. I think that we were in the habit of using consumer goals, as un-nuanced as they are, as a stand-in for life goals and that in this environment where we feel the "store door" closing on us, perhaps forever, we are in a bit of a quandary.

Paula: Right. Because the belief that we should be happy all the time is still there.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact the "pursuit of happiness"--not happiness per se, is our constitutionally guaranteed entitlement. Apparently it was a matter of some debate among the founding fathers as to whether the phrase in the Declaration of Independence should read "life, liberty and happiness" or if the pursuit itself was the protected right. It is of more than passing interest to consider why the latter became the accepted phrase.

The debate might have been quite like our own. For some, the intention was to reflect the thinking of John Locke, that the role of government was to protect life, liberty and property for its citizens. For Locke, there was equivalency between happiness and wealth. For others, however, the issue was more complex. For them, happiness was a rich soup of ideas, opportunities, family and community all seasoned by personal taste.

If the current preoccupation with happiness was occasioned by economic turmoil (which in some measure came about through pre-occupation with property), then maybe it's time to consider other aspects of happiness. Can we look beyond the simplicity of consumer purchases to determine a deeper source of happiness? Can we develop our personal and community goals with the same zeal with which we honed our consumer goals?

Our hunch is that we can, and we will. It is not the commitment to personal happiness that is necessarily flawed. It was the one-dimensional way in which we pursued it. We are not the first to point out that there may be a happiness bonus in this recession. And perhaps the level of noise on the subject of happiness is a very healthy--and necessary--public debate on the softer side of recovery.

Comments

[BlissCat]

I think that the very fact that people are posting an article of this sort is a good sign. I agree with Paula and Jeff, a few years ago people did feel that buying more and more would bring them closer to happiness, and as a result a lot of people owned very many things but had precious little happiness. I am one of those who tried Transcendental Meditation, and it changed the way I looked at happiness. To me happiness is something I get mostly from within me. Little by little, as I meditated, I discovered that a silent part within me was growing, When I accessed that part of myself I felt calm and at peace, and, also, I felt complete and full. Over time that feeling has become stronger, I feel more rooted within myself. Like a trusted friend it is there when I need it. While I am still affected by whatever happens to me and the rest of the world, remaining in touch that underlying part of me has given me a base of happiness and stability that makes all the difference.

[sparklingstar]

Transcendental Meditation tm.orgg) is my choice for the best way to pursue happiness. That is both for the inside non-changing kind of happiness and the outside changing kind of happiness. Why? Well, thankfully, one might say this subject is now out of the realm of opinion and philosophizing. TM is in a class by itself: 350 peer-reviewed research studies were conducted on over 10,000 subjects who were practicing the TM technique. These studies included numerous randomized controlled trials, along with eight meta-analyses of 597 separate studies on the effects of meditation. The studies were conducted at Harvard Medical School, Yale Medical School, Stanford Medical School, University of PA, University of Kentucky, and more than 200 other independent institutions, and were done by 360 scientists from 29 countries. All total, over 30,0000 subjects (participating in TM, other techniques or controls) were involved in the hundreds of research studies on TM. The majority of these studies compared TM to other practices or control groups. Oh and P.S. I'm so much happier since I started TM -- deep inside as well as on the surface.

[shylove2]

Ask the Bhutanese!!! I prefer mindfulness meditation however..

[bloggabix]

The pursuit of happiness is natural to life. Life grows and evolves, and we humans experience this growth through our continuous desire for more and more - more friends, more love, more power, more happiness. This is natural. The problem is where to find the source of this happiness. Within each one of us is a field of infinite happiness - Bliss. Through the simple, effortless technique of Transcendental Meditation the mind can make contact with this field of Bliss. Coming out from that experience, it feels more refreshed, creative and fulfilled. The more one dives into this field of Bliss, the more this Bliss begins to be enjoyed in all phases of life - at work, with family and friends, etc. We start to live a life of happiness and fulfillment. Transcendental Meditation is a wonderful technique to grow in Bliss. I highly recommend it.

[OtayPanky]

Jeff: A much easier game than the confusing and even painful process of delineating complex personal goals and growth.

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That's exactly why books, blogs and barfs about happiness sell like hotcakes. As HL Mencken said, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American people".

So here we are in the midst of SEVERAL profound systemic failures which will require a MASSIVE reorientation and restructuring of both personal and societal goals and activities. It's that time in the cycle called DESTRUCTION.

And yet, for most people, the need to FEEL happy is going to get them looking for tips and tricks to massage their happy spot, rather than go for the deep and prolonged period of grieving, self-reflection and change that the soul's journey calls us towards.

Life coaches, therapists and gurus of all sorts will do whatever they can to milk this dying cow for as long as possible. And HuffPo is a collaborator in the great milking, because it gives them free marketing to the masses.

Good times!

[DownerCow]

To the extent that money can buy health care and housing, then money can buy the peace of mind necessary for happiness. Hopefully there are other political systems, not based on greed, that can supply those needs, as capitalism has failed miserably.