5 Keys to Enduring Happiness
Follow these rules for enduring happiness, says research.
Post published by Jen Kim on Mar 17, 2015 in Valley Girl With a BrainIt was deceiving. The crowd looked like one you might see at an Apple
product launch—eager, hungry young folks in tech (mostly in their 20s
and early 30s)—all texting away on their brightly lit phones.
But this was not an Apple event, and there was no new iPhone to unveil.
This group of future tech millionaires was packed at a bar in San Francisco’s Mission district to hear Rob Willer, an associate psychology professor at Stanford, explain something completely unrelated to technology. He was going to tell them how to find meaning in a f*cked up world. (link is external)
I was also there—not as a future tech millionaire—but as a person who simply wanted to know the answer.
Despite the allure of fame and fortune imminent their careers, these bright, smart people were clearly not as satisfied as they felt they should be. Otherwise, why were they there?
If there’s one industry that I’ve always glamourized—even more so than entertainment—it’s tech. Hollywood is a town built by money and fame. Silicon Valley is as well—with one huge added benefit. Here, you wield unbelievable power over society.
Apple, Facebook, Google, Uber, Tinder—not only have these companies changed the way we live, many of us can’t imagine life without them. They control our lives. They dictate what we will do and how we will do it. How many of us simply don’t travel if Google maps advise us that our route is red?
It’s not difficult to see why there exists a bit of a god complex in certain tech leaders and visionaries. They know best, even when Google offers them $6 billion for a product that has zero proprietary value.
But the attendance at Willer’s lecture proved that not all tech minds are satisfied by the promise of money, fame and power. At least not as much they’d like to be.
Which is why it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the first myth he debunked was that any of those things were keys to happiness—or more specifically, enduring happiness.
Certainly we all enjoy the taste of a hot, buttery lobster roll, driving around (or being driven around) in fancy cars, and love positive attention and compliments, but he says those things are just fleeting bathroom breaks of joy in the road trip of life.
Whereas enduring happiness, as the name implies, is a lasting, prolonged happiness.
Doesn't it seem like technology is fighting happiness? In
the pursuit of filling our lives with more knowledge, organization and
ease, tech unintentionally sanitizes and dilutes so many of our rich,
analog experiences. It’s like taking a bath in a wetsuit.
Then, someone in the audience whispered: What if you do all of those things, but you’re still not that happy? (OK, it was me)
The answer is simple: seek self-transcendence, says Willer. In other words, stop being obsessed with yourself and the things you want—focus on others.
Which makes a ton of sense—considering this very nature of the question is completely self-centered.
Self-transcendence, he says, also plays a primary role in creating a meaningful life. Let go of ambition. Stop being so self-serving. In other words, don’t let you (or your desire for something—including happiness) do a hostile takeover of your life.
At the end of the lecture, it seemed the crowd wanted more. More answers, more insights, just more.
Willer didn’t have any “more” though.
But I realized something—being happy is like riding a bike. You can’t learn it from someone else or by watching it happen to others. You have to do it yourself.
The first thing I’m going to do? Stop thinking about it.
But this was not an Apple event, and there was no new iPhone to unveil.
This group of future tech millionaires was packed at a bar in San Francisco’s Mission district to hear Rob Willer, an associate psychology professor at Stanford, explain something completely unrelated to technology. He was going to tell them how to find meaning in a f*cked up world. (link is external)
I was also there—not as a future tech millionaire—but as a person who simply wanted to know the answer.
Despite the allure of fame and fortune imminent their careers, these bright, smart people were clearly not as satisfied as they felt they should be. Otherwise, why were they there?
If there’s one industry that I’ve always glamourized—even more so than entertainment—it’s tech. Hollywood is a town built by money and fame. Silicon Valley is as well—with one huge added benefit. Here, you wield unbelievable power over society.
Apple, Facebook, Google, Uber, Tinder—not only have these companies changed the way we live, many of us can’t imagine life without them. They control our lives. They dictate what we will do and how we will do it. How many of us simply don’t travel if Google maps advise us that our route is red?
It’s not difficult to see why there exists a bit of a god complex in certain tech leaders and visionaries. They know best, even when Google offers them $6 billion for a product that has zero proprietary value.
But the attendance at Willer’s lecture proved that not all tech minds are satisfied by the promise of money, fame and power. At least not as much they’d like to be.
Which is why it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the first myth he debunked was that any of those things were keys to happiness—or more specifically, enduring happiness.
Certainly we all enjoy the taste of a hot, buttery lobster roll, driving around (or being driven around) in fancy cars, and love positive attention and compliments, but he says those things are just fleeting bathroom breaks of joy in the road trip of life.
Whereas enduring happiness, as the name implies, is a lasting, prolonged happiness.
- The No.1 way we achieve enduring happiness (link is external) is to embed ourselves in relationships where we are receiving and giving emotional support.
- Moderation is also a key to long-term happiness. Willer cites studies that suggest eating pieces of chocolate in moderation results in more pleasure than gorging. He even makes the argument for enjoying commercials and not binge-watching House of Cards in 24 hours. (When has anyone ever felt good about themselves after watching that much TV?)
- Expressing gratitude also tops the list. (link is external) Be thankful for everything, says Willer: For your relationships, your health, your possessions, your ability to be thankful.
- Hand in hand with gratitude is generosity. (link is external)Volunteering, spending as much money on others as we might ourselves are some of the ways we experience true fulfillment, according a bunch of research.
- For more happiness, increase your flow (link is external), which is what we experienced when we are fully engrossed in an activity and doing well at it. Think of the last time you danced your heart out or had one of those mind-blowing 10-hour conversations with someone new in your life. That’s flow. And the only thing you need for flow is to be completely present in the moment, meaning you should probably put your iPhones away.
Source: Heisenberg media / Flickr Creative Commons
- How are we supposed to be completely immersed in flow when we are alerted every second by an email, a text or a tweet?
- Is it possible to experience moderation, when technology has turned everything imaginable into a Las Vegas buffet—all delivered in under an hour? We no longer have to choose anything, because everything is at our disposal.
Then, someone in the audience whispered: What if you do all of those things, but you’re still not that happy? (OK, it was me)
Source: MattysFlicks/ Flickr Creative Commons
Which makes a ton of sense—considering this very nature of the question is completely self-centered.
Self-transcendence, he says, also plays a primary role in creating a meaningful life. Let go of ambition. Stop being so self-serving. In other words, don’t let you (or your desire for something—including happiness) do a hostile takeover of your life.
At the end of the lecture, it seemed the crowd wanted more. More answers, more insights, just more.
Willer didn’t have any “more” though.
But I realized something—being happy is like riding a bike. You can’t learn it from someone else or by watching it happen to others. You have to do it yourself.
The first thing I’m going to do? Stop thinking about it.
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