Pursuit of Happiness
I recently came across an article that had to do with how people perceive happiness. Some researchers have discovered that people, in general, tend to overestimate the effects, both positive and negative, associated with a particular action. For instance, if I decide to get a new computer, I will naturally overestimate the happiness that owning such a computer will bring. Conversely, I will tend to overestimate the perceived unhappiness or inconvenience associated with a broken leg. The thrust of the research was basically to invalidate the assumption in economics that the buyer makes decisions on maximum utility, i.e., that he maximizes his happiness when making purchases. If a person cannot correctly estimate the happiness resulting from a given purchase, then he cannot correctly maximize his happiness.
Now, I must admit that I was quite unsurprised at the results of this experiment. I have for quite a while realized that my purchases have not provided the happiness that I thought they would yield. In fact, I vividly remember getting the parental warning “You need that like you need a hole in your head.” From my ongoing readings in psychology (admittedly quite non-professional) it makes perfect sense that the ongoing presence of a thing will be accorded less attention over time. If you hear a noise in the background and it is more or less constant, over time your brain will eventually disregard the presence of that noise. It knows it’s there, so there is no need to continue processing the stimulus. Looking at it from a purely untutored view, it also makes sense. Your imagination is infinitely more vivid, more powerful, and more capable than any real object will ever be. Your imagination can make the most mundane of doodads seem extraordinary. Combine these two traits, and there is no wonder that we underestimate the perceived happiness.
While that is all well and good, what I found particularly intriguing was the side note that all people have a set happiness which never really changes. Basically, if I could go out and buy a new car, a new house, and get a new girlfriend, I would be temporarily very happy, but over time my perceived happiness would tend to return to an equilibrium point not effectively different from where it is right now. Having the new car, new house, or new girlfriend really don’t change my perceived happiness at all.
I’ve discovered this effect is definitely a factor in my life. I often feel as though I’m lost on this featureless barren wasteland that stretches as far as the eye can see in every direction. I can struggle and strive, running in one direction, but I never seem to get anywhere. All I end up doing is making myself tired. So I pick another direction and run for days or weeks, and still end up in virtually the same place. No matter which direction I choose, I never reach any sort of destination, and thus waste any energy I expend in getting there.
So the question becomes, what is the point? I could switch places with some super-billionaire, and given time, we would both return to more or less the same level of happiness as we have before the switch. Why should I struggle and strive to achieve a level of success that will ultimately not make me any happier than I am now? I have already achieved the pinnacle of happiness that I am ever going to achieve.
The answer basically lies in the pursuit. It is the very striving and struggle that makes life worth living. I could happily sit and accept my current status, but it is written into our nature to seek out and achieve new levels, even if it does not result in an effective change in status. And ultimately, it is not my happiness that brings the greatest result. My happiness is fixed and standard, subject to only the occasional swing of the pendulum, but the happiness that I can attempt to impart to others is effectively infinite. It is in those few positive swings of the pendulum that we are truly happy, and though it is likely impossible to keep your own pendulum on a permanent peak, you can impart your happiness to someone else, and they to another, and ultimately increase our perceived happiness through synergy.
Which begs the question, if I can share my happiness, and thus improve the lives of those around me, cannot I also share my despair, thus bringing the world’s happiness down to my level? I am reminded of the poem, Solitude, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Given that sharing one’s woes is such a selfish act, it seems that the best course would be to keep your problems to yourself. I remember vividly feeling this way over the last few years, especially when I was having the most problems. I had to deal with my problems myself, and not inflict them upon those around me, because that is the selfless and noble thing to do.
Strangely enough, sorrow and frustration do not seem to have the same level of infectiousness that happiness does. While I have experienced situations where one bad attitude managed to infect a large number of people, and I’m sure to in the future, in general other people are not as affected by my problems as I am, and vice versa. I often find myself actively volunteering to be the confidant for my friends, and I derive a great deal of personal satisfaction from these sessions. In sharing their problems with me, the problems are reduced in immediacy and importance. I in turn, while I do feel a measure of sympathy and empathy, find that those problems are not commensurately transferred to me. In effect, sharing the problem makes it smaller in every regard.
Ultimately, that’s what I use this area for. I manage to alleviate any real guilt, since anyone who bothers to read what I write has every opportunity to run in terror, and I get the cathartic benefit of sharing my problems. So I’ll hand everyone a big thank you, and apologies again for my logorrhea.