A002

The past is behind us, the future is yet to happen and so what we really have is the present. Our ability to find satisfaction and meaning in the present opens the pathway to happiness and gratification.

If you listen to all the negativity in the media, the overwhelming majority of Americans think they’re falling behind financially, are despondent about their lives and their futures, and are desperately looking for a change. And yet according to the 2007 Gallup poll, 84% of Americans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal life at the time, while 14% are dissatisfied. So the conclusion: people are far happier with themselves and their lives than the media cares to report. Being a business analyst for over 16 years, I believe the notion of letting the numbers speak for themselves. However in this case, I think human being’s desire to be happy must have played a role in the overwhelmingly positive survey results. All complaints aside, when you look someone in the eye and ask her if she is happy, she tends to refocus her attention on the positive aspects of her life (family, job, health) and render an unequivocal ‘yes’ answer. We all want to be happy. It’s just plain human nature.

Happiness is typically considered to consist of at least two ingredients: hedonia and eudaimonia. General consensus is that hedonia corresponds psychologically to a state of pleasure, while eudaimonia essentially means a life experienced as valuably meaningful and as engaging.

A life saturated with hedonic pleasure may be pleasant but not meaningful. On the other hand, a eudaimonic life deprived of pleasure may be noble but not very enjoyable. Empirically, in real people well-being has been found to involve both together. High questionnaire scores for hedonia and eudaimonia typically converge in the same happy individual (Deiner et al. 2008; Kupens et al. 2008). That is, if a person self-reports to be hedonically happy, that same person is also likely to report a high sense of positive meaningfulness in life.

Depending on what culture you were brought up in, hedonic pleasure could be viewed as taboo or the absolute necessity of living or something in between. Looking back at my grandma’s whole life, she toiled endlessly for her family. Like the Asian women of her generation Grandma didn’t believe she had the right to enjoy life even a little. Her only pleasure was a mid-day nap. She would sit on a couch with a blanket covering her legs and doze off, ready to jump up any minute if anyone needed her. Grandma cooked three meals for a family of ten day in and day out. Before she passed away, she gave her lifetime savings (the money we gave her over the years) to her five children, not a penny had ever been spent on herself. Grandma never taught me how to do household work. She would always say “If you don’t know how, you may end up not having to do it,” which told me that if she had a choice, she’d rather do something more creative with her life. But without receiving any education, Grandma made it her full and over-time job to take care of her family. Her happiest moments were when she was surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Since she was so petite, either one of us grandchildren could lift her up, which made her laugh so hard until tears came out of her eyes.

It may be undisputable that the capacity for pleasure is essential for normal well-being, but the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure’s own sake can only lead to self-indulgence or even a harmful lifestyle. Eudaimonia (or gratification) can’t be delivered solely from bodily pleasure, nor is it a state that can be chemically induced or attained by any shortcuts. Given all the benefits and the flow that the gratification produce, people often choose pleasure (and worse, displeasure) over gratification. In the nightly choice between reading a good book and watching TV, we often choose the latter –although surveys show again and again that the average mood while watching sitcoms on TV is mild depression*.

Living a good life involves using one’s signature strength in daily work, play and parenting. A meaningful life is one that joins with something larger than we are – and the larger that something is, the more meaning our lives have.

I am yet to find that something that is much larger than we are. I have an idea of what it is but haven’t made a personal connection. In the meantime, I am allowing myself much more hedonic pleasure than what my grandma would have ever allowed herself. I take pride in being the nurturer that glues my family together. After all everyday can be a beautiful day if we choose not to rush through it, but instead look upon it as a gift and live it with curiosity, mindfulness and a deep appreciation.

__________________________________________
Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman