3 Lies We Believe About Happiness

3 Lies We Believe About Happiness

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes 50 seconds

Since before the dawn of civilization, human beings have been engaged in the pursuit of happiness. Like so many other animals, doing whatever we could to make ourselves feel good was prioritized. What made us different from most other animals, however, was our discovery of meaning.

It made it possible for us to do something that felt bad and felt good at the same time. We learned the possibilities of finding happiness through sacrifice. If I avoid temptation, I get to feel good about myself.

By not doing what makes me feel good now, I get to experience a happiness that comes to my future self. The happiness did not come from the physical pleasure you could experience but rather from the story that you told yourself about what was happening.

LIE 1: Being Happy is About Feeling Good

One could argue that the secret to success lies very much in our ability to do what is in the best interests of our future selves. While sometimes that also feels good now, more often it is in the difficulties that we overcome that we find future success and happiness.

The problem is that our brain is wired in such a way to make this harder to recognize this.

Our brain’s job is to keep us alive. To do so, it makes predictions about the world. It tries to figure out how to best mobilize its resources and energy accordingly.

Our instinctive urges, formed deep inside our brain many years ago point us toward what our brains feel we need.

Meanwhile, our rational understanding points us toward the end goal we are after. We are involved in an endless war between our urges and our will.

This is not a war that we can win for good. Instead, it is a series of regular battles, many times a day between what we want to do and what we really want to do. It is between our laziness and motivation. Between our desires and our goals.

The experience of struggle that we have with this is described by Steven Pressfield in his classic The War of Art as ‘resistance’.

In many ways, the ancient Greeks were the first to point out this as a lie. They argued that happiness is less about pleasure (hedonism) and more about being virtuous (eudemonia).

Being good was associated with a form of meaningful happiness. We like to believe that only good people can experience true happiness. The problem is that few people actually see themselves as bad.

The worst tyrants and evilest dictators in history more than likely told themselves stories of themselves doing what ‘anyone else in their position would do’ or explained away their atrocities by the ‘greater good’ or ‘destiny’. They were able to experience happiness by sculpting stories that made them feel good about themselves.

The character we play in the stories we tell ourselves will determine how we feel about ourselves. If we’re a victim, the world cursed us. If we’re a villain, we curse ourselves. If we’re a hero, we have a chance to change things.

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The Truth:

Being happy is actually about the stories that you tell yourself about yourself and your life.

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LIE 2: We Know What Makes Us Happy

There is an empathy gap between how you think you will feel and how you actually feel when you experience an event. Daniel Gilbert in his wonderful book Stumbling on Happiness revealed research that showed that we are notoriously bad at predicting how we will feel in response to events in our lives.

There is a default level that we have for happiness that most of us usually revert to – even after very positive and negative events.

The problem is that we give agency for our happiness away from the events of our lives. We are at the mercy of the consequences of our own decisions and the form of luck that determines how our lives go.

Consider the over-indexing of the importance of money in happiness. Most people think to themselves that money will bring happiness and, in most cases anyway, it doesn’t.

Research suggests that once we have enough to live a decent life, money ceases to be correlated with our happiness.

Billionaires and millionaires are just as happy and miserable as each other. While we need money to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, the desire for more money cripples our ability to be satisfied by earning enough.

The problem is that what we want is usually influenced by the world around us. We want what others want. We want what others have. We are socialized from a very early age to pursue what we are told is worth wanting.

We get programmed by the media and social media to desire products, experiences, or to be specific kinds of people if we are to be happy.

We wear clothes, makeup, or jewelry to convey we are a certain type of person. Or we share stories or demonstrate examples to signal to the world who we are.

Or we buy possessions that make us ‘successful’ and give us ‘status’. Or we share our opinion online so we can tell everybody – “I’m on the right side of history. I’m one of the good ones.”

But none of this makes us truly happy. Because in our efforts to be somebody else, we come into conflict with who we are.

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The Truth:

Being happy is about understanding what we actually want rather than what we think we should want.

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LIE 3: Being Happy is What Happens When We Get What We Want

We think that if only X happens, then we will be happy. But it never works out that way. Instead, the achievements we accomplish can often feel hollow. The reason is because we have a multitude of chemicals in our brains that make us feel good. Dopamine. Serotonin. Endorphins. Endocannabinoids. Oxytocin.

Each one of the neurochemicals is released in response to certain events.

When we exercise or experience physical pleasure, endocannabinoids or endorphins are released that give us a ‘high’ that makes us feel great.

Oxytocin is released whenever we feel close to and bonded with others. Our happiest relationships trigger the release of a massive amount of oxytocin.

Serotonin is the chemical we experience when we feel satisfied, secure, and safe. It is released when we feel confident and good about the way things are.

Dopamine, finally, is the motivation molecule. It drives us toward what we want both by providing us with a want and a need, a desire, and a craving, pleasure, and pain.

Research suggests that our relationships (romantic and otherwise) are the single biggest predictor of our level of happiness.

Feeling gratitude is one of the most important techniques to increase your regular feelings of contentment.

The practice and philosophy of Stoicism which encourages us to embrace the challenges and joys of life equally, is one of the most effective routes to being happier. Why? Because it gets the balance right.

The problem is that we often just fall into the trap of thinking that dopamine happiness is happiness. In other words, the secret to being happy is accomplishing what will make us happy. But that doesn’t work. Because once we have accomplished that, we just move on to the next achievement, and so on and so on. We keep trying to drive forward believing that happiness is just one more success away. It’s not.

The Truth:

Being happy is not about achieving what we want. It’s about feeling good about what we have and feeling good about achieving what we really want. Happiness exists in the balance between the future and the present.

So what’s the answer?

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Questions That Might Help

Here are some questions to help you change the way you perceive happiness.

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What stories are you telling yourself about the kind of person you are?

What stories are you telling yourself about your life?

How helpful are those stories?

What are more empowering stories?

What are your current goals?

Why do you want them?

Do you really want them?

What do you actually want?

What do you feel good about in your life?

What do you want to pursue?

What can you do today to feel good?

What can you do today to make your future better?

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We need to become more aware of the stories we are telling ourselves about who we are and about our lives. We need to understand what truly makes us happy rather than what the world tries to convince us will. We need to balance feeling good about what we have today and what Robert Sapolsky calls ‘the happiness of pursuit’.

Only then can we leverage that incredible ability we have as human beings to make meaning matter. Only then can we make the most of whatever lives we have regardless of circumstances, difficulties, or bad fortune. Only then can we understand the truth about happiness.