Is Happiness Overrated? (The Shocking Truth They Don’t Want You To Know)
March 19th, 2011
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In Want to Get Rich? Be (Moderately) Happy, Laura Rowley talks about some studies that have revealed surprising downsides to extreme happiness.
What? Surely this is heresy! Supreme happiness is the holy grail that we spend our whole lives looking for. You can never have too much of it, right?
Well, let’s just see.
People were asked to rate themselves on a happiness scale of 1 to 10. The perfect 10s had the most self-confidence, energy, close friends, and time spent dating. That’s not unexpected. Everyone likes happy people. Also, research showed that the 10s were likely to misremember things for the better, to recall being happier in retrospect than they actually reported at the time. This makes it easier for them to see the best in people.
What about the people who were happy but not too happy? The 7s and 8s did the best in terms of grades, class attendance, conscientiousness, income, education, and career. The idea is that moderately happy people receive a lot of benefits from their happiness, but they also harbor a touch of dissatisfaction that pushes them to strive for more. This may be a bit surprising, but it makes sense. If everything is perfect, you get comfortable and stop trying so hard.
It turns out that there’s an even bigger downside to excessive happiness: death. The extremely happy don’t live as long as the moderately happy.
Even the researchers were shocked by this one. They speculate that the reason may be because the super happy don’t pay enough attention to illness, or they don’t recognize the danger of the risks they take. Also, sustained euphoria takes its toll on the body, just like chronic stress. And because people aren’t genetically programmed to be extremely happy all the time, some people turn to drugs as happiness boosters.
University of Illinois psychology professor Ed Diener said, “Happiness, like spirituality, is partially a private pursuit, defined by individuals based on their personal values. Be wary when people tell you to live for the moment, to strive for an exciting life, or that you ought to be happier. Chasing super-happiness is a mistake that can lead you astray and be self-defeating.”
Yes, there’s always a downside to having too much of a good thing, even happiness.
Photo by JasonRogers
March 31st, 2011 at 7:23 pm
I love this, and of course I almost laughed when I came to the bigger downside about excessive happiness: death! It’s very true that we shouldn’t let others push us into thinking we should always be striving for MORE and MORE happiness, but if we’re just naturally happy and clueless, maybe we’d get more happiness-years (years x happiness-index) in total, even if years was a lower number than most people get and happiness a higher number than most people report.
I do agree the best thing of all is being a 7 or 8 with lots things to look forward to. We want to strive for better grades or accomplishments and enjoy the hope that we can become more and more happy, whatever that will mean!
March 31st, 2011 at 10:07 pm
@ Christie, good point about maximizing happiness-years. See, this is another practical application of math!
April 1st, 2011 at 8:08 am
Oh yeah, I think we could derive one big equation that will explain everything, really. Let’s see…there’s an in-law factor and cubicle factor.. As cubicle approaches infinity or in-law approaches infinity then happiness approaches zero and drops out of the formula. I may have to get a big online whiteboard where we can work on this…
April 21st, 2011 at 1:59 am
Though I’ve followed your blog for a couple years now (I believe Randy Pausch recommended your blog but not certain.), I have never weighed in on a topic until tonight. Not for lack of input but a fleeting mind. Before I forget, I would like to revisit and provide input to your blog on “Judging” but I’m not sure if you are open to that? Can I still give input though it is archived?
Concerning happiness (interestingly there are several ties here to my “judging” response). Happiness is a feeling and feelings are almost always based on judgments of good or bad, right or wrong, nice or mean. Response living.
It took a long time to be grateful for my losses and the chronic pain I was left with but it took me on an amazing journey of discovering what I can have any time I want it “Jesus!”, just kidding. It’s choosing peace, I don’t mean to sound simplistic, I get set off by situations, events, relatives, etc. often. For me the key is to remember in those moments of bliss, joy, sadness or angst is that I mostly didn’t create the situation nor can I control it. When I remember that I realize I was making an ego based response based on judgement of past events or others response to like situations. I went through a month long Chronic Pain Management program (everyday for 4 hours) but the first afternoon brought instant reduction of my pain. The brain cannot multi-task. Multi-function yes but multi-task we cannot. So whatever our focus has our attention. If you are unhappy, or better said, at war with your life and it’s opposite being peace. Then choose peace.
From the FreeDictionary it is defined:
peace [piːs]
n
1.
a. the state existing during the absence of war
b. (as modifier) peace negotiations
2. (modifier) denoting a person or thing symbolizing support for international peace peace women
3. (often capital) a treaty marking the end of a war
4. a state of harmony between people or groups; freedom from strife
5. law and order within a state; absence of violence or other disturbance a breach of the peace
6. absence of mental anxiety (often in the phrase peace of mind)
7. a state of stillness, silence, or serenity
at peace
a. in a state of harmony or friendship
b. in a state of serenity
c. dead the old lady is at peace now
hold or keep one’s peace to keep silent
(Law)
keep the peace to maintain or refrain from disturbing law and order
make one’s peace with to become reconciled with
make peace to bring hostilities to an end.
I realize my writing is leans more towards battling unhappy state than the pursuit of happiness but in reality they are both judgement based and neither last. Peace is more sustainable in my book. I remember Randy Pausch near the end of his book, how spent he was after chemo treatment, people and an hour on his feet speaking to a crowd. Yet still knowing and a sense of peacefulness. Chronic can own me at times but I know to stop they cycle, do something different. So I got out of bed, checked my mail. Thought I’d respond and the best thing? No pain the whole time I wrote. Peace.
Most of the time I am pain free just through mind over matter. Brain runs the body, not the other way around. I need to learn how to blog because I’ve defied their every prognosis of the life I would have. Time to share with others. Wow, just saw how much I wrote.
Sorry about that, I was enjoying the “High”.
Brian Price