Come On Get Happy!

Feature, By Jody Ekert, 18th June, 2008

This month on Same Same we’ve been looking at happiness. This week, Jody Ekert unpacks the concept. Is happiness about finding the pleasure in life? Is it about channelling your energies into things that are bigger than you? Is it about building your life around meaningful things? No. It’s a combination of all three.

Given my recent blog about sadness, it seems slightly odd to be writing now about how to define happiness. But as one of the speakers at the Happiness & Its Causes conference said, he was a born pessimist and sometimes thought “only pessimists and depressives can research optimism”. Well, I’m not sure I’d agree, and I wouldn’t claim to be in either of those states right now, but it is food for thought.

So, to the real issue. Is it possible to give a definitive definition of happiness? The short answer is no, but that doesn’t stop us giving it a good crack! I listened to dozens of definitions, but the one that most resonated with me is the one I’m going to share with you. It comes from Dr Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness.

He claims that happiness is actually defined as the total of three ways of being. Those are Positive Emotions, Positive Character and Positive Institutions. A quick aside about the issue of biology before we get going – basically, it seems your “set-point” of happiness may vary depending on your genes or your upbringing, but recognising that fact does not stop you from using the three states below to increase your levels from that set-point. So that should stop any of you who are already preparing excuses.

Positive Emotions
Under this heading is anything that makes your life pleasant. Examples of this would be the use of things such as drugs, shopping, sex and masturbation – they all result in pleasant emotions. The emotions are fleeting, and it’s not possible to bask in the warm content glow of those experiences for very long, but it’s possible to go out and seek them at will. This kind of surface contentment is sometimes referred to a “Happiology” – kind of pop psychology lite in the search for happiness. Seeking these positive emotions can jolt us into a different mode of thought and that’s of great benefit, but alone this state has no lasting impact on long-term happiness.

Positive Character
Anything that makes you life more engaged falls under this category – that’s anything that gives you sustained satisfaction. It’s much harder to achieve this than it is to just find a pleasant experience like in the previous category. To create an engaged life there are no shortcuts. You need to find your highest strengths and apply them to your activities and life choices. This will mean a great deal of introspection. If you are strong in teamwork for example, you need to re-craft your work and hobbies to use this skill. If you wuss out, and just continue to do tasks or jobs regardless of skills, and without learning your own strengths, then you are really just “fidgeting till you die”, according to Seligman.

Positive Institutions
This last category is the hardest. It’s what gives you serenity and pride. It’s living a meaningful life. And that can be defined as belonging to, and serving something, that you believe is bigger than you are. This is where you might slot religion if you are so inclined, or perhaps volunteer work – something that is not simply fun, but rather philanthropic. Whatever activity you pick should help you somehow define for yourself what it is to be a positive human being and to contribute as one.

So to re-cap – true lasting happiness is what happens when you combine your efforts to lead a pleasant life with your attempts to engage and your commitment to doing something meaningful. The key thing to remember is that progress in each of these areas is measurable, and buildable – regardless of your set point.

This all sounds quite theoretic. Looking at my own life for example, I would think that my way of a pleasant life is to eat nice food and have massages. My way of trying to engage in life is to try and build on my strengths in writing and comedy. I think my weakest point is the third category. So far my way of trying to do something meaningful has been to teach other people comedy and event organisation skills – but I only do that once a year. And at that time of year I’m so happy it’s silly. The rest of the year could be improved on. So in the next few weeks I’m going to start trying to figure out for myself what it means to have a meaningful life.

And if there is one take home message from all of this it is this – merely living for moment to moment pleasure will not make a difference over the long term. Engagement and meaningfulness count for more. Pleasant stuff is just the icing on the cake.

Other articles in the happiness series:
Happy Happy Joy Joy!
The Cheat’s Guide To Happiness.
Goodwill Hunting.

Photos by Morgan Carpenter, Ross Brownsdon and Ashley Mar.

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