Chasing Happiness

It is common for humans to strive for happiness, marking it as one of the most powerful and influential emotions. Traditionally, happiness is too vague for a proper definition resulting in different people having different meanings and experiences attached to happiness.

The famous philosopher Aristotle suggested that happiness is an ideal state of living which is obtained when people ‘do good and be good’ but this notion has seen to be faulty in the current decade where people start developing arbitrary notions of good and bad actions (everyone perceives good and bad actions differently). Therefore, we cannot follow Aristotle’s advice to be happy, implying that no one can truly ever be happy.

When we are questioning the relevance of happiness in today’s world, we need to look at why there is a Happiness Index that shows a country’s level of happiness by assessing its citizen’s state of being happy. In countries like United Arab Emirates, there is a happiness minister looking into how the country can become the happiest place to live on earth. Happiness measured in these scenarios refers to the citizen’s quality of life in a country or city, especially whether the western standards of good health care, quality education, job, transport and communication facilities are met by the government.

What baffles me is how can this western scale measure the world’s happiness and rank each country according to a numerical scale. It also sparks another controversial question of ‘can money buy happiness’. Is this feeling of being happy not accruable for the poor? The ambiguity of this concept of happiness makes it difficult to quantify, understand, sometimes difficult to find when you feel happy as it manifests differently in different people. Let us try to explore what factors may influence a person to feel happy; what makes people happy or even try to understand whether it is just the work of some hormones in our body.

Let us evaluate what are a few things that make people happy.

Consumer Culture: People of all age groups enjoy getting gifts and obtaining much-awaited material goods like limited edition books, toys or even shoes, watches to name a few. The issue with this sort of happiness is that it does not last. Either by buying the money will run out or once the new material goods become old then a new good will be needed to feel happy again.
Freedom: Some researchers suggest that mostly adults and adolescence enjoy happiness in freedom. Freedom can mean may things like being free from exams for students or freedom to choose a career path or even freedom to live life the way we want. If not exploited, we can use this freedom to choose our happiness, so it is important for parents to let their children gain freedom to choose their happiness.
Friendships: Friends are a critical part of our lives as we become happy when we share moments, food and everything else. So, keeping good relationships with people around us increases the release of oxytocin, which is a hormone that triggers the release of dopamine therefore causing us happiness. This makes it vital to have friendships to feel happy.
Social Media: Today’s generation experiences happiness through social media platforms, as many get to display their talents, start a business or even communicate with family and friends. However, social media networking may lead to constant need to receive comments and likes from others. So, our happiness may not sustain for long if we don’t receive the overwhelming feedback, we expect from the social media community.
Accomplishment, Appreciation and Approval (AAA): Generally, people enjoy achieving something and getting appreciated for their contribution. Today’s generations social media usage has enhanced their constant need for approval from others in society. As a result, happiness of conquering a challenging work issue for adults or exam for students is much lesser than getting appreciated by others. Approval from society makes us feel belonged and brings more happiness than appreciation.

After analyzing the common factors that bring us happiness, we may wonder, is happiness a fleeting feeling. Will it ever sustain? How can we sustain happiness?

‘Good life’ confused as ‘Good’s Life’: People who tend to have more intrinsic goals of self-acceptance, self–development, physical fitness and relationships are likely to be less materialistic. Extrinsic goals of social recognition, self-image, popularity and financial success are more materialistic and relay on others or even goods to make themselves happy. Keep a limit to buying things and try to find something you’re passionate about; it can be a talent or hobby and focus on how that makes you feel once you have pursued it.
Social Relationships: Investing in family and friendships gives you happiness. Interacting with these close groups of people by conversing or engaging in an activity together can become highly rewarding. Try planning activities that you can do together as a family or friends, encourage conversations with friends and family.
Pursuing physical wellbeing: Keeping a balanced diet and exercise is commonly recommended for improving physical wellness. Similarly, exercising enhances your mood too as you become free from workload from school (children) or office (adults) and concentrates on the task given. Taking time off to develop the habit of exercising is crucial for both mental and physical fitness.
Pursuing mental wellbeing: Work pressure for adults and school demands for children sometimes causes a situation of burnout. Burnout is when you have physically and mentally exhausted yourself which may lead to many diseases and a rising level of stress. Avoiding burnout is important, especially when work has now taken over our home life as well. Setting schedules for work and home life, engaging in a hobby, practice appreciation in life by journaling what you’re grateful for in life, find your passion and pursue it.

This concept of long lasting or sustainable happiness is fairly a new concept. Many researchers suggest that happiness is a subjective experience, so everything mentioned above is based on current research and may change according to individual experiences. However, it is vital you find what makes you happy and empower people around you to chase their happiness.

References

AVERILL, J. R. & MORE, T. A. 1993. Happiness. Handbook of emotions. New York, NY, US: The Guilford Press.
CAUNT, B. S., FRANKLIN, J., BRODATY, N. E. & BRODATY, H. 2013. Exploring the Causes of Subjective Well-Being: A Content Analysis of Peoples’ Recipes for Long-Term Happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14, 475-499.
DEMIR, M. 2015. Friendship and happiness: Across the life-span and cultures, Springer.
MAKANT, M. G. 2010. The pursuit of happiness: The virtue of consumption and the consumption of virtue. Dialog, 49, 291-299.
UVNÄS-MOBERG, K., HANDLIN, L. & PETERSSON, M. 2015. Self-soothing behaviors with particular reference to oxytocin release induced by non-noxious sensory stimulation. Frontiers in Psychology, 5.