The Lost Art of Happiness

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. 

A right old carry-on

It's hard to know exactly what went wrong - but the last week of the holiday was a bust.  I don't think my companions would mind me saying that - though they undoubtedly have their own words to describe it.  For me, it was challenging, disappointing, uncomfortable and occasionally fun.  

I spent the flight home asking myself why is it so difficult to have a successful holiday with people you really like, and sometimes even love?  

Psychologists rank going on holiday as being the fourth most potent relationship stressor:  after death, moving house and childbirth.  Why is that?  Does the sun bring out the worst in us?  Are we untruthful about our expectations? Or do we not pay attention to the fine print - misreading a trek through the Andes for a beach vacation in Antigua?   

Or, if a vacation’s success depend on whether we are either energised or enervated by the challenges presented us, is it just a character thing?  

I think it is, in part.  It's about emotional flexibility.  About managing your own expectations and about being able to embrace ambivalence.  And seeing the travel and the inevitable delays or problems as part of the trip - not as life-threatening.

I also believe it's about timing. It's about knowing when to go and when to stay. About identifying how much we can actually deal with at that moment.  It's about acknowledging that this holiday, for whatever reason, might not be the right option for us, right now.  And that sometimes ‘she travels lightest who stays at home'*.

But, ultimately, I think it's a baggage thing.  We all drag invisible carry-on with us. We take with us our fears of being in uncontrolled environments, our feelings of inadequacy, our dislike of surprise or change. We pack the anxiety of not being understood, of becoming vulnerable, of being lost.  We bring along our life hopes and expectations, then try and graft them onto our new environment.  

This luggage may not weigh anything at check-in.  But it can cost us dearly on arrival.  Because it sits, unpacked and mouldering in our rooms.  And our companions have to try and manoeuvre around something no-one (including ourselves) knows is there.  An impossibility that can result in an inevitable tripping up and falling out.  Fortunately we didn't get to that place. And I am not too sure how we avoided it - maybe the strength of our friendships or empathy with each other's situation over-rode our frustrations.  But we could have.

(*apologies to Thoreau. And Kipling, after.)