On the hunt for happiness

How many of us are really sure what ‘happy’ is, and will we even know when we’ve found it?

by Lisa Stone

It is a fact that people always find happiness in fairy tales because, at the end, ‘They all live happily ever after.’ But how many of us really believe that Beauty never had the tiniest argument with the Beast after they were married; or that Cinderella never had toothache, or period pains, or PMT, after she married Prince Charming; or that no-one they loved ever got angry or fell sick. Yet we are told, quite clearly, that they all lived happily ever after. So, perhaps they had a different idea of happiness back then. Or perhaps they felt that being alright most of the time was enough to justify the epithet ‘happy’. Or maybe there is more than one kind of happiness?

If you look in the thesaurus, that would appear to be true. There are innumerable words that mean ‘happy’: beaming, blissful, buoyant, carefree, cheerful, cheery, chirpy, chuffed, contented, delighted, ecstatic, elated, enraptured, euphoric, exhilarated, exuberant, flourishing, glad, glowing, good-humoured, gratified, grinning, high-spirited, in a good mood, joking, jolly, joyful, light-hearted, merry, over the moon, overjoyed, pleased, radiant, rapturous, satisfied, smiling, sunny, thrilled, untroubled—are just a few of them. Some of them are short-lived and quite extreme emotions; others are longer-term, gentler feelings. But which is the one people are looking for?

Fast-forward, past many other great theories about happiness… and we arrive in 2011, where psychologist, Martin Seligman (also known as ‘the father of positive psychology’) has just published a book called Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being. In this book, Seligman talks about five rules (or ‘pillars’) for ‘flourishing’—the word he uses instead of ‘happiness’. He believes that people are not looking, on a fundamental level, at temporary happiness; what they really want is a longer-lasting emotion, something more akin to contentment. To flourish, he says people need five things: to feel good about something; to get absorbed in a pastime they enjoy (this is called ‘flow’); to have close family, friends or feel part of a community; to believe in a reason or a cause that really matters; and, to work hard at a skill so they can do it well.

It is interesting to reflect on the similarities between Aristotle’s and Seligman’s ‘rules for happiness’, so far apart historically but so close conceptually. It seems safe to assume that, if these two thinkers—and many others in between—have reached such similar conclusions, then humankind can have changed very little, over the two thousand years that divide them. And if that is true, there must be some deep truths to be found in the guidelines they put forward.

While happiness is definitely a very personal thing and it would never do to suggest one person might find it in the same way as another, there are clearly commonalities.

Most importantly, it appears that being happy involves some level of effort, either physically, emotionally, intellectually or artistically, on the part of the person who is seeking to find it; in which case, sitting waiting for that moment of sublime joy to strike like a thunderbolt is evidently not going to yield results.

Therefore, it seems it is for us to make our own happiness, through hard work and conscious effort; making sure we are aware when the stresses and anxieties are beginning to build, and that we have a few strategies—be they friends or hobbies—to chase the blues away and ensure we retain a sense that life, on the whole, is good, and we are at one with our wellbeing.

Perhaps the poet Max Ehrmann sums it up best: ‘Whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.’

Keeping the hippo happy

Have you ever noticed that if you are scared or unhappy it is almost impossible to think straight; and when you are anxious it is really hard to learn or remember things?

We all have a part of our brain called our limbic system which protects us from danger, by deciding whether we should stay and fight, or run away—this is our ‘fight or flight’ instinct. It is in this limbic system that our hippocampus can be found; in fact, we have two of them, shaped like seahorses, one by each ear. The hippocampus is like a warehouse that processes emotions and stores things we need to recall, such as facts and memories. It helps us to remember them by linking each memory to certain senses, so that the smell of freshly cut grass reminds us of happy summer days and makes us feel happy; or a certain perfume or song reminds us of someone we know. It then links, tags and mind-maps these memories, before sending them to storage somewhere else in the brain.

However, next to the hippocampus is the amygdala, which is a bit like the brain’s panic alarm; it checks out what is going on around us and tells us when to be scared. If it senses too much stress, danger or negativity, it sends negative messages to the hippocampus. If the hippocampus gets too many negative messages, it stops working properly—and eventually starts to shrink—meaning we struggle to deal with our emotions, process information and remember things when we are anxious or unhappy. On the other hand, when we feel relaxed and positive, we can do all sorts of difficult tasks and think clearly—because our hippocampus is happy! The more we send positive messages, the more efficient it gets. ■