The Happiness Formula

By Greg Harris

Happiness Can Be Illusive

Our founding fathers understood that all humans are entitled to "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." While Life and Liberty are written as absolutes, by contrast, Happiness was never guaranteed. Instead, we are merely guaranteed the ability to pursue Happiness. The Founding Fathers clearly understood that Happiness is never guaranteed and in fact, is harder to find than it sounds.

Researchers have concluded that at any point in time, maybe only one-third of us are happy. That stat alone is enough to wipe the Happiness off many of us, but the deeper one looks at their own Happiness in life, it becomes clear that being happy presents a number of significant challenges.

Happiness is in the eye of the beholder. There is no one formula for Happiness that applies to every person. While some may see achieving Happiness as easy, it's not clear that any one person's formula is transferable to others. Thus, the pursuit of Happiness is something each of us has to discover on our own.

Happiness is a moving target. Happiness is not a static state. What made me happy 30 years ago (or even yesterday) is not the same as today. We change, we evolve, and the elements that deliver Happiness change as we change.

Happiness is not always an option. Sadly we can't control all the elements that contribute to our Happiness. External factors can both contribute to and detract from our state of Happiness at any point in time.

Happiness can be fleeting. While most of us recognize Happiness when we see it, few things in life produce a permanent and recurring feeling within our Happiness equation. Ask a new mother what makes her happy and she likely will point to the miracle of her new baby, but ask her again about her Happiness at 3 AM when the baby is crying and she is sleep-deprived, and you might get a different answer. Let's face it, "grumpy" happens for all of us many times a day.

Happiness can't be multiplied. Just adding more of a good thing doesn't guarantee more or even continued happiness. A bowl of ice cream may create happiness but a full quart may cause a U-Turn in that Happiness.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Many of us gauge our Happiness along a continuum that ranges from Happy to Unhappy with a large chunk in between that is best described as "Not especially Happy but not especially Unhappy." Others may see Happiness as more binary; If I'm not unhappy then by definition I'm happy. No matter how you gauge your own Happiness optimizing that Happiness is a good goal for everyone.

For all the reasons above, Happiness will never be a permanent destination for us. Instead, getting good at the pursuit of Happiness becomes the more important skill to develop.

Happiness is a journey. If Happiness is not a permanent state, it requires a plan and one that is selfishly optimized for one person...you! You don't need a plan to be happy but the process of building a plan is part of a journey of discovery about what makes us happy.

Climbing the Happiness ladder. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs provides a useful construct for understanding the pursuit of Happiness. Maslow suggests that we have similar needs and that must be achieved serially. Someone in pain can achieve Happiness with the absence of pain, but very quickly that lack of pain becomes the norm and is no longer a driver of our Happiness.

There is no Happiness bank. Unlike a bank account, it's difficult to collect and store Happiness for later use. Similarly, the concept of borrowing Happiness today for future payback really doesn't exist. Yes, it's true that having a lot of money in a real bank can make it easier to be consistently happy, but Happiness is not a commodity that can be protected in a secure safe.

Happiness is not a math problem. Neuroscientists can identify the brain's pleasure centers and have the ability to measure the amount of Happiness when that part of the brain lights up with pleasure, but it's not a terribly practical tool in everyday life. We certainly know how we feel but, Happiness is not a math problem or an algorithm that can be calculated and predicted.

Ok, so being happy is not a given, and achieving Happiness takes some work and skill building, but there are often obstacles to pursuing our own Happiness.

The Happiness Enemy Within

In many cases, we are our own worst enemy as we pursue Happiness. Ask an average person what it takes to be happy and many might say "more money." It's true that money can eliminate many of the external factors that create unhappiness, but at best money is just an ingredient and for some, money can get in the way of happiness. The truth is that we often don't know what the right Happiness recipe is. We are human and frankly, we don't understand our own Happiness as well as we might think we do.

The problem can go beyond our ignorance of what it takes to make us happy. The truth is that we aren't always honest with ourselves. For example, a person who stays in an unhappy marriage likely tries to justify the decision and convince themself that they will be happier despite evidence to the contrary. Sometimes it's necessary to find our Happiness through the perspective of the eyes of others.

So if Happiness is different, fleeting, often beyond our control, difficult to measure, something we don't fully understand, and at times we can't even trust our own judgment, then how can we ever discover Happiness?

Unfortunately, I don't have all the answers, but I'm confident that wrestling with the topic goes a long way toward making progress in the pursuit of Happiness.

Happiness Inventory

It makes sense to start with a list of the things that historically have made you happy. Take a Happiness inventory and write down everything in your life that has consistently delivered Happiness. The process of remembering the times when you were happy is designed to both educate and be a pleasurable process. Take your time on this exercise because the longer the list, the easier it will be to create a Happiness plan.

Once the inventory is complete, the next step is to organize your Happiness ingredients. I suggest creating a few buckets for each ingredient.

Repeatable. These are things that, with a high degree of confidence, are likely to make you instantly happy. For example, planning a vacation is designed to create a period of extended Happiness. While there is no guarantee, many people will find that their Happiness inventory includes vacations and the logic holds that a future vacation is likely to create a fresh dose of happiness.

One-off. While these are likely some of our biggest moments in life, these are not things that are likely in our future. A new baby might be happy for those early in their life but not something that can be created later in life.

Ingredients. Happiness ingredients by themselves might not make you happy but when combined with other elements become important contributors. If your entire inventory easily fits into the categories above, try going a level deeper and list the underlying elements. For example, warm weather contributes to our Happiness for many of us but can't do much to move the needle all by itself.

The goal of this exercise is to learn from yourself. This process forces us to stop forecasting what will make us happy (something we aren't very good at) and look at our past Happiness results (something we are better at). It's important to recognize that as time goes on our memories tend to dull. Specifically, the unhappy moments in our lives might have seemed consequential at the time but today feel less so. This process, however, is designed to identify patterns that we can capture and ideally recreate.

The Happiness Formula

Now that we have a sense of how Happiness works, it begs the question "What's the Happiness Formula?" It seems clear that there is no one Happiness Formula but something that we have to build for ourselves. What does seem obvious is that there are building blocks for Happiness that we will want to build into our personal formula.

Here are some ideas for designing your personal Happiness Formula:

People. For most of us Happiness blossoms in social situations. Happiness is typically a team sport. Build a list of people who make you happy and build ideas about how to expand your social opportunities.

Personal Performance. Lots of things need maintenance to keep working properly and humans are no different. Our brain, our body, and our egos all need maintenance. A Happiness Formula may only work if built on a strong foundation and that requires feeding, exercising, and challenging the physical and mental body.

Progress. When our lives feel circular many of us feel less happy. The Happiness Formula needs to take aim and provide some life direction. Happiness requires making progress and if you aren't sure where you are going, you likely will not see the progress. If you do have a clear sense of your path to Happiness, progress along the path tends to validate your Happiness.

Purpose. Happiness is often highly correlated with identifying ways to contribute beyond your personal life. Helping others or society as a whole is important for many of us.

The four P's above become the variables for your Happiness Formula but these are still just big-picture structural elements, but don't tell you what to do today to be happy.

While many might struggle to add specific details to this list, most of us are very clear about what makes us unhappy. Making a similar inventory of things that make you unhappy might help you discover more about how to design Happiness into your daily life.

The next steps become very personal and my advice is unlikely to be useful. That said, I think there are a number of tools you can use to optimize your life for Happiness.

Simplify. Slow down and make a conscious effort to find Happiness throughout your day. Simply seeking out happy moments guarantees they won't simply happen and go unappreciated. For me, consciously telling myself to eat slower helps me better savor and appreciate a meal. The idea is to actively seek out small nuggets of Happiness throughout your day and take the time to appreciate every micro-Happiness moment.

Perspective. Invest in perspective by understanding the challenges of others. If you don't feel happy, consider watching a television show about life in prison. This likely won't make you happy, but will help you frame your relative Happiness.

Schedule Your Happiness. Schedule time for happy moments throughout your day and counter-program times when you tend to be less than happy. Take Happiness breaks throughout your day. For example, I take time to schedule some puzzles as part of my day. Or, when I'm dragging late in the day, I might schedule a chat with someone I find uplifting.

Give. Instead of focusing on making yourself happy, spend time focused on making others happy. What goes around comes around and sometimes the best way to get is to give.

Conclusions

There is no one Happiness Formula, there is no Happiness pill, and attaining consistent Happiness can be challenging. While difficult, there is nothing more important in our lives than the pursue Happiness. Working hard on your Happiness journey is designed to help contribute to your overall Happiness. So while it may feel like the recipe is incomplete, the process of thinking about the topic puts ownership of your Happiness firmly in your own hands.

Happiness may require trial and error, but if you aren't trying and risking new strategies, then you are unlikely to change your current trajectory. Experiment more, expand your thinking, and enjoy the process of discovering what makes you happy.

About the Author

Greg Harris is not a Happiness expert and possesses no specific relevant skills. Greg has managed to be happy for much of his life, but it's the Happiness bumps in the road along the way that have pushed him to think through the topic inside his own head. It shouldn't be a surprise that writing is one of the things that makes Greg happy.

October 11, 2023