Tal Ben-Shahar believes we can learn to be happier. He defines happiness as being "the overall experience of pleasure and meaning". Being happy, he says, means knowing what makes you happy. Being happy takes practice and dedication. Being happy has nothing to do with how much money you have. And, having just finished his book "Happier" - I find I agree.
A departure for someone who used to get stuck on the money point. My fear was always of living out my old age in a cold water flat, with an incontinent daschund. I was convinced if I didn't work my ass off every day I would end up one of those old ladies on the high road who left a trail of eau de wee as they wafted past. My last two pounds weighing down the pocket of my grubby, pie-gravy smeared cardigan. So I worked for people I didn't like for far too long.
Ben-Shahar is not saying that happiness lies in poverty. Not at all. He acknowledges that money can play its part in creating happiness by freeing us to do more of what makes us happy. What he is saying is once the three essentials - home, food and education are covered - the possibilities to be happy are infinite. Just so long as we know what happiness means to us.
Positive Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced 'cheek-sent-me-high-ee') believes that we experience happiness when we are in a state of Flow. Flow, he says, is when 'action and awareness are merged'. In other words, Flow comes about when we are completely absorbed in a task or experience.
I thought back to the last few of times I felt that way: drinking coffee today and reading this month's American Vogue, making sandwiches at a music festival, painting flower boxes in the back garden. I didn't hear the friend greet me, I hardly felt 6 hours pass, and Saturday afternoon was over before I knew it.
Time flows when you're having fun.
Each of these experiences passes Ben-Shahar's MSP Process evaluator. Each held Meaning: I was learning, helping, improving. Each gave me Pleasure, reflected something that I enjoy: fashion/music/food/people/home. Each required a skill level or Strength that I have. None of them were done for the approval of others.
Ben-Shahar's theory is simple. For something to bring us happiness - it must have an intrinsic or inner importance. And must satisfy our interests, values and beliefs. Trying to create happiness through something of extrinsic or external importance - needing others approval, or amassing status symbols - will leave us short-changed. The happiness will be fleeting and we will have to start all over again to achieve the same result.
But Tal is a pragmatist - he knows that we will sometimes have to do some things that we don't like. However - if these experiences help to facilitate ongoing happiness - we can make them part of our lives. Just not all of our lives.
Ben-Shahar also points out that we should not expect to be happy every living moment, it's an aggregate of experiences across our whole lives. Sometimes we will have to do things we don't love doing - because they will help facilitate the things we do. A job that doesn't challenge - but brings in money for the holiday we want to take. He reminds us throughout his book that happiness is not a place, a state, a destination - it's a journey. A constant work-in-progress. That when we evaluate all of our experiences, on aggregate - we should feel happy.
I've been worrying about what next year will bring work-wise. I've decided to stop that and focus on doing more of what I am enjoying right now. My three essentials are covered and it's time to invoke that old coaching saw: do more of what works. I'm happy and I am going to keep working at it.
