The Happiness Delusion

Are you happy?

In my experience, when asked this question, not many people will respond with an uncategorical yes. And even those few will have a caveat they don't wish to make public.

There has been a truck-load (a scientific term meaning "a large number") of research undertaken over the last twenty years or so into the nature of happiness. Harvard conducted an 85-year longitudinal study (https://www.weforum.org/videos/harvard-conducted-an-85-year-study-on-happiness-here-s-what-it-found/) which found a range of factors affecting happiness, but didn't define it.

Bhutan, a small country in the Himalayas regularly produces its "Gross National Happiness (GNH) index" alongside the other indicators of the country's standing.

(https://www.gnhcentrebhutan.org/gnh-happiness-index/)

Scientific American has also published on this matter (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/heres-the-happiness-research-that-stands-up-to-scrutiny/). It seems that there is much to be excited about for further research in this field.

But what IS happiness?

Is it purely a function of brain chemistry? Is it related to laughter or contentment, having the perfect partner or achieving a goal or financial security? Or all of the above, and more?

Or none of them at all?

What a complicated concept it is. In truth, it is an elusive desire, yet its embedded in the US Constitution as a right, no less. Something we can't nail down. Something we strive for without even knowing what we're chasing.

Trying to be happy results in us creating a story with an unsatisfactory ending (I hesitate to say unhappy). Because it relies on faulty thinking.

That thinking says: Happiness is what we must work towards. We deserve to be happy. Therefore all our decisions should aim at reaching this goal. The end result will be a happy life.

But what does the evidence tell us about this thinking? That it doesn't work! Look around. Become aware.

The "happiness" we perceive is transitory, fleeting, momentary. Therefore we can never capture it or control it. It's too elusive. When we think we're there, we're not. Life reminds us that the tree we're barking up isn't the right one after all, beautiful it seems to us.

So perhaps the answer lies in accepting that "happiness" is a figment of our imagination, that it's merely an idea fed by big business, politicians, some mental health professionals, organised religions and perhaps our own feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty about who we really are.

Happiness hides when we reach out for it, disappears as soon as we think we have it.

When we accept that "happiness" is a delusion of our own making, and live our lives based on that premise, we might experience a kind of release, tranquility, contentment that can't be bought, sold, manufactured or promised.

It is for this that I search my inner being; for this that I mark my own territory; for this that I walk my own topography.

Perhaps using the word happiness as a noun misleads us, as if it's an object we can own. Maybe it's really an adverb. Something that embellished our actions.

Source: www.positivepsychology.com

I truly don't know whether I'm right or wrong but that has nothing to do with it. I suspect that it's more related to who we are and what we do with that, finding out who we are and sharing that with others.

Thinking out loud. Opening up a new direction on the map of my life.