Additional Support for Living Mindfully
Appendix Values List
“The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.” ERIC HOFFER
It is a universal truth that all beings seek happiness and try to avoid suffering. This is a primary and fundamental motivation for us all. Yet, more often than not, genuine happiness eludes us, while suffering—anxiety, stress, worry, depression, fear—pervades our lives.
All too often, the very quest for happiness becomes the source of our suffering. This dynamic plays out again and again in our daily lives. The things we think will bring us happiness: a good job, a loving relationship, good health, a nice house, a reliable car, quality recreation, a rewarding social life, become the cause of our stress, worries, and concerns.
How is this possible?
We live in a time of incredible abundance and luxury. We have the ability to moderate the temperature of our homes, summon the collective knowledge of the world on our phones, access entertainment at the touch of a button, and even adjust the firmness of our beds. Yet, despite all the creature comforts available to us, it seems we have more mental, emotional, and physical problems than ever.
At the core of these problems is an increasing level of stress in our lives. Stress does not simply make us feel bad and take an emotional toll on us, it actually affects our physical health as well. Numerous studies have found that prolonged stress appears to adversely affect our immune system and can increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, depression, gastrointestinal ailments, asthma, and Alzheimer’s disease. We all know from personal experience that stress can rob us of our happiness during the day and even prevent us from getting rest at night. When we search for the source of our stress, we find that it is related to our work, relationships, health, and quality of life—again, the very things we believe will bring us happiness.
In reflecting upon and examining this phenomenon over the past thirty years through my own experience in recovery from addiction and my work helping others as a counselor, educator, and spiritual advisor, I have come to understand that, like a bad country song, we are usually looking for happiness in all the wrong places. We are trying to find it in people and things that ultimately cannot provide it and are largely out of our control. The best people, things, and circumstances can offer us is temporary pleasure. They can never provide lasting happiness.
But that is where we put our energy with the hope that if we can just line everything up correctly, we will be happy. We do this even though we know people (including ourselves) with good jobs, great relationships, prime health, lots of toys, and time for leisure are still subject to depression, anxiety, fear, worry, anger, frustration, and disappointment.
How is it that we continually fall into this trap?
One explanation can be found in the groundbreaking work of Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert, PhD. He explains that although our minds are exceptional and perform many functions extremely well, our faulty perceptions and cognitive biases can lead us to imagine the future inaccurately, particularly what will make us happy. He describes an “impact bias” that causes us to consistently misjudge how happy some things will make us and how unhappy other things will make us.
In his TED talk “The Surprising Science of Happiness,” Dr. Gilbert describes how field work and laboratory studies have shown that significant events, such as winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test, have a much smaller, less intense effect on us, and a much shorter duration, than we expect. He also cites research on major life trauma and happiness, which suggests that three months after such events, with few exceptions, there is no effect at all on a person’s happiness. This flies in the face of the most basic beliefs and assumptions that underlie many of the choices we make in our lives.
In a recent major shift in psychology from a primary focus on mental health problems to studying mental health and well-being, universities and researchers are now dedicating time and resources to studying the science of happiness, compassion, and altruism, among other related topics. The frequent area of focus is the cause(s) of happiness and the search for scientific answers to explain why some people are happier than others, even when they face similar life circumstances.
One of the most popular models coming out of this research states that outside circumstances in life are responsible for only 10 percent of our happiness.1 Yet, even with 90 percent of our happiness attributed to other factors, we are putting most of our energy into improving our circumstances.
According to this model, 50 percent of happiness is genetically determined. This is often referred to as our “set point.” You’ll notice that some people tend to be more pessimistic than others, and some people tend to be naturally happier and more optimistic. When things happen in our lives that we feel good about, we are happy for a little while then come back to our set point. Likewise, when things are challenging and create problems or stress, that too, passes and we again return to our set point. Reflect on your own life, and you will see this to be true. Life has its ups and downs, but our basic level of happiness over time seems to be pretty steady.
The final 40 percent of happiness is attributed to intentional activity such as thoughts, actions, and behaviors.2
So, according to this model, instead of just striving to improve the outer circumstances of our lives, it is much more important to look at how we think about, respond to, and interact with the people, events, and circumstances we encounter.
Another important recent discovery is the plasticity of the brain. Neuroscientific research has demonstrated that we can create new neural pathways and actually change our brain with intentional activities. Understanding this, if we are able to use our thoughts and actions consciously, we can rewire our brain and even change our genetic set point. In this way, we can directly affect 90 percent of the causes of our happiness—instead of seeking to better our circumstances, which affects only 10 percent.
While I find these new scientific developments interesting and insightful, I believe they only confirm the time-honored universal wisdom about the true source of happiness. The key to genuine happiness has never been a mystery; in fact, it can be found again and again in ancient wisdom, philosophy, contemporary psychology, our grandparents, and in the lessons we have been taught since childhood. In Plato’s Euthydemus, Socrates establishes clearly that happiness does not depend on external things, but on how they are used. Or as my Little League coach told me, “It is not whether you win or lose that matters, it is how you play the game.” Regarding our inner peace, well-being, and genuine happiness, what matters most is not what we have in life, but how we live it.
It is important to remember our circumstances are constantly changing and that they offer far less joy or suffering then we imagine they will. Though our circumstances, people, and the world we live in is always changing, there is something constant that we can depend upon: when we do things we feel good about, we naturally feel good about ourselves. This is a key point to understand and incorporate in our lives—our genuine happiness comes from doing things we feel good about, not from doing things that make us feel good.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with doing things that make us feel good; the point is that we will feel good only as long as the activity lasts.
