Approaching happiness in modern life
Many philosophers, novelists and even Nobel laureates believe that finding a purpose in life and sticking to it tends to bring happiness to our lives. We should never give up
What is happiness?
Happiness is a state when the human body is flooded with the 'happiness' hormone, serotonin. When we are okay with the way things are, the calm and quiet contentment is happiness.
"Being happier is a choice, absolute happiness is not. Everyone cannot always be happy, they can be miserable. However, there's always an affordable effort you can put in to make the situation less daunting and less hurtful."
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It's all in the mind
But why do we feel unhappy in the first place? This is what David Cain – author of 'This will never happen again' – says about unhappiness, "Unhappiness is nature's way of keeping people on their toes."
Our brain perceives happiness as a survival threat due to its evolutionary history. It has been trained to do so for two hundred thousand years, since dissatisfaction led to the survival of our ancestors. Without the persistent urge to hunt more even after having enough, our ancestors were just one failed hunt away from dying of starvation.
Amygdala [part of the brain] is the human problem-scanning machine. This makes us go over all the negative consequences we can go through, drowning us with negative thoughts, finding flaws even in perfect situations. That is what evolution has done to the brain.
Happiness is a choice
According to what Mo Gawdat, author of 'Solve for Happy', said in the Deep Dive podcast, "Being happier is a choice, absolute happiness is not. Everyone cannot be happy always, they can be miserable. However, there's always an affordable effort you can put in to make the situation less daunting and less hurtful."
You can choose your attitude towards a circumstance. You can always engineer the response.
Research by University of California psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky tells us that only 10% of our happiness relies on our life circumstances and the other 90% on our genetic predisposition, intentional activities, basically, on our outlook on the world.
One of my favourite authors Viktor Frankl says, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of human freedoms: to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Don't trust the dopamine
Emotions such as joy, pleasure, excitement, elation and ego are dopamine-driven. Some of them are really positive feelings but not genuine happiness. Relying on such emotions to drown your unhappiness is a terrible choice.
Dopamine is an excitatory hormone which tells us to do more. It feels really good to have all that rush of it in your body. But, our brain keeps setting the baseline for dopamine higher and looks for more and more – like an addiction.
Dopamine depletion is really quick. Whenever you cannot supply the demand, you are thrown into misery. And every time it gets harder to meet the demand. The more dependent you become on dopamine, the more deprived you get of serotonin – the calmer hormone – the actual happiness hormone.
Remember the lottery
Neil Pasricha shares three ways to be happier in his book 'The Happiness Equation'. He termed it as remembering the lottery, - "1. Being conscious of Amygdala's Hijack, 2. Being conscious your brain always wants more of the dopamine, 3. Being conscious you are lucky to be where you are."
About gratitude, Charles Dickens said something wonderful, "Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many, not your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."
Have an Ikigai and never retire
My favourite productivity YouTuber, a former Cambridge doctor, Ali Abdaal said in one of his videos, "Being happy means having something to do, having someone to love and having something to look forward to."
Seven-year-long research by Tohoku University Graduate school of medicine tells us people with an Ikigai (purpose/goal) tend to have higher levels of self-rated health and lower levels of stress.
Our brain needs direction, work chooses it for us. My favourite quote from Nobel laureate James Watson says the same, "Never retire. Your brain needs exercise or it will atrophy."
So, get hold of that Ikigai and never retire.
Ilhamul Azam is a high school junior
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
