The easy path to happiness is getting what you want, but it’s also fleeting. Likewise, eliminating a list of annoyances can improve life – commutes, shame, bad relationships, loss of control – but these too will not deliver lasting results. According to psychologist and professor, Jonathan Haidt, the place to start is with ancient wisdom.
Haidt argues happiness is determined by a set formula: Biology + Environment + Activities = Happiness. Simple enough, right? His book, The Happiness Hypothesis, examines ancient or classic ideas about happiness. Essentially, it’s a guide to understanding certain concepts that might help people better understand how to do the hard, deeply profound work necessary to achieve long-term happiness.
Understand Passion and Reason
For starters, understand the constant struggle between passion and reason. Training human passion, Haidt contends, is like taming a wild beast. Understanding the influence passion plays in life helps explain why people do what they do. Most often, feelings come first and then facts are found to justify the feeling. Similarly, when someone is told not to do something, they obsess over it. Both these conditions are the result of passion.
Building on the passion v. reason dichotomy, Haidt explains the basics of changing the mind. Learning to control thoughts and actions, instead of letting others do it, is empowering. But, how can people develop habits that will maintain long term control over thoughts and actions? Understanding three concepts helps: 1) little, unconscious things, like the sound of your name, can tack you in new directions; 2) people respond more to threats and unhappiness than opportunities and pleasures; and 3) genetics play an enormous role in people’s lives.
How Do You View Yourself?
One of Haidt’s most astute explanations is on how people view themselves. According to Haidt, 70 % of high school students believe they are above average and a majority of MBA students think they contribute the most to group projects. Across the board, everyone overestimates themselves. This leads to bias – I’m right, your biased. This helps bolster the feeling everyone has that they are right and then seek facts to support it. Those who oppose you, are evil. But how does self-reflection apply to happiness? He tries to explain.
The Happiness Equation
In a chapter titled, “The pursuit of happiness” Haidt pulls all the prior spokes together around a central hub: Happiness = Biology + Environment + Activities. Part of his analysis explains people seem to have a genetic predisposition to a level of happiness. When a person understands his or her biological proclivities, that person can adjust their life accordingly. Combined with the ability to control environmental factors and activities, most people can thoughtfully navigate a way to happiness. Work, for instance, is a big activity. It’s worth taking the time to find strengths and build on them, then you will love what you’re doing and you’ll have a calling, not just a job.
In addition to understanding the formula, there are helpful studies and observations. One study says there are two types of enjoyment: 1) physical satisfaction (eating) and 2) doing something you’re pretty good at. In other words, taking care of your basic needs is necessary for happiness, but then also doing things your pretty good at on a regular basis. Another study of “conspicuous consumption” found most people really want prestige, not necessarily happiness. In it, people reported they would rather make $90,000 if everyone else is making $70,000 rather than $100,000 where others make $150,000. Haidt concludes the section by assuming activities connect us to others, items separate us. While that might be true, it’s not the full truth. The reason people want to make more might have less to do with acquiring “items” and more to do with control – people who make the most, have more control over their lives.
What is Love?
Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of the book addresses “love and attachments” by comparing passionate love and companionate love. Passionate love, he argues, brings short term satisfaction. It’s like a drug, it gives people a surge of happiness, but it last only a short period – and some people get addicted to that surge. By contrast, companionate love is long term and grows with longer time together. Haidt includes a wonderful graph illustrating scientific findings proving companionate love’s enduring value. On one page, a graph shows the spike of passionate love towering over the slow progression of companionate love over the short term. On the next, it shows companionate love rising and rising and rising with each decade, surpassing the surge of passionate love and lasting. Haidt argues, “True love, the love that undergirds strong marriages, is simply strong companionate love, with some added passion, between two people who are firmly committed to each other.” He further explains, “Having strong social relationships strengthens the immunes system, extends life (more than does quitting smoking), speeds recovery from surgery, and reduces the risks of depression and anxiety disorders.”
The Happiness Hypotheses applies science and modern psychology to a number of other classic notions on happiness. One of these is proving humans are social animals, so we typically treat each other the way we want to be treated – do unto others as you wish they do to you. Haidt also shows how adversity can make people stronger and more resilient by raising your abilities (but there are a host of caveats).
Developing good habits, starting with a list of virtues, and finding faith are also essential tools for happiness – which are hardly novel annotations.
Haidt has written an insightful book, but it’s not without his own bias – which proves some of his point. He professes to be objective, but he is also self-professed liberal, though he seems more libertarian. In sections of the book, it’s relevant because it appears those two aims are not compatible. For example, he’s gripped with finding ways to criticize President George W. Bush – who regardless of his politics actually does the things in this book very well. Haidt is also proudly secular, which creates blinders. There is almost nothing presented in this book that is not prominent in the Judeo-Christian traditions and the Bible. There is irony that as Haidt teaches about not seeing our own bias, he does not see his own.
Haidt, overall, delivers good news: Most people can be happy. All his points are a little random but taken together can help us understand ourselves. We can control our environments and do more of the activities we enjoy. While we cannot select our own biology, we can understand it and learn to work with it. Haidt’s meditations are useful, if you think happiness is the point in life.
