The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

by Jonathan Haidt

Few of our potential sources of wisdom are nonsense, and many are entirely true. Yet, because our library is also effectively infinite—no one person can ever read more than a tiny fraction—we face the paradox of abundance:

Reciprocity is the most important tool for getting along with people,

it is certainly true that changing your mind is usually a more effective response to frustration than is changing the world.

Yessir

In days gone by this mind of mine used to stray wherever selfish desire or lust or pleasure would lead it. Today this mind does not stray and is under the harmony of control, even as a wild elephant is controlled by the trainer.

Needed

But when Gazzaniga asked the patient to use her left hand to point to the correct image on a card showing several images, she would point to the hat. Although the right hemisphere had indeed seen the hat, it did not report verbally on what it had seen because it did not have access to the language centers in the left hemisphere. It was as if a separate intelligence was trapped in the right hemisphere, its only output device the left hand.11 When

BRains are wild

This finding, that people will readily fabricate reasons to explain their own behavior, is called “confabulation.” Confabulation is so frequent in work with split-brain patients and other people suffering brain damage that Gazzaniga refers to the language centers on the left side of the brain as the interpreter module, whose job is to give a running commentary on whatever the self is doing, even though the interpreter module has no access to the real causes or motives of the self’s behavior. For example, if the word “walk” is flashed to the right hemisphere, the patient might stand up and walk away. When asked why he is getting up, he might say, “I’m going to get a Coke.” The interpreter module is good at making up explanations, but not at knowing that it has done so.

"Not knowing it has done so." Hard to wrap my mind around it.

immediate possibility of pleasure or pain, loss or gain.17 When you feel yourself drawn to a meal, a landscape, or an attractive person, or repelled by a dead animal, a bad song, or a blind date, your orbitofrontal cortex is working hard to give you an emotional feeling of wanting to approach or to get away.

The more I learn about how complex my body is the more I want to guard it from everything and protect it.

What was their secret? A large part of it was strategy—the ways that children used their limited mental control to shift attention. In later studies, Mischel discovered that the successful children were those who looked away from the temptation or were able to think about other enjoyable activities.

I dig it. You resist the temptation by controlling your mind to ignore it. Mind over matter kind of.

The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it. —MARCUS AURELIUS1

Fax

THE MOST IMPORTANT IDEA in pop psychology is contained in the two quotations above: Events in the world affect us only through our interpretations of them, so if we can control our interpretations, we can control our world.

Stunning.

To take something “philosophically” means to accept a great misfortune without weeping or even suffering. We use this term in part because of the calmness, self-control, and courage that three ancient philosophers—Socrates, Seneca, and Boethius—showed while they awaited their executions.

Sweet term, sweet definition, sweet origin.

She helps him see that adverse fortune is more beneficial than good fortune; the latter only makes men greedy for more, but adversity makes them strong.

It's hard to call someone stupid if you've ever felt stupid.

“Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.”

So good.

Daphne and Barbara came to be known as the “giggle twins.” Both have sunny personalities and a habit of bursting into laughter in mid-sentence. They won the cortical lottery—their brains were preconfigured to see good in the world.

You can change your affective style too—but again, you can’t do it by sheer force of will. You have to do something that will change your repertoire of available thoughts.

Keep it in mind.

Suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side effects, all of them good: increased self-esteem, empathy, and trust; it even improves memory. Suppose, finally, that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it? The pill exists. It is meditation.

Try meditating, fool.

Sit still (in most forms) and focus awareness only on your breathing, or on a word, or on an image, and let no other words, ideas, or images arise in consciousness.

Really have to try meditation. Ought to find books on it.

The goal of meditation is to change automatic thought processes,

Changing the way you think can change everything

tame the mind.

Buddha got it exactly right: You need a method for taming the elephant, for changing your mind gradually.

I used to think you could do it suddenly

So the next time a salesman gives you a free gift or consultation, or makes a concession of any sort, duck. Don’t let him press your reciprocity button. The best way out, Cialdini advises, is to fight reciprocity with reciprocity. If you can reappraise the salesman’s move for what it is—an effort to exploit you—you’ll feel entitled to exploit him right back. Accept the gift or concession with a feeling of victory—you are exploiting an exploiter—not mindless obligation.

Reciprocity is an all-purpose relationship tonic. Used properly, it strengthens, lengthens, and rejuvenates social ties. It works so well in part because the elephant is a natural mimic. For example, when we interact with someone we like, we have a slight tendency to copy their every move, automatically and unconsciously.28 If the other person taps her foot, you are more likely to tap yours. If she touches her face, you are more likely to touch yours. But it’s not just that we mimic those we like; we like those who mimic us. People who are subtly mimicked are then more helpful and agreeable toward their mimicker, and even toward others.29 Waitresses who mimic their customers get larger tips.30 Mimicry is a kind of social glue, a way of saying “We are one.”

But those simple games are in some ways simple minded. Players face a binary choice at each point: They can cooperate or defect. Each player then reacts to what the other player did in the previous round. In real life, however, you don’t react to what someone did; you react only to what you think she did,

And the mind can be your nemesis

Placing a large mirror in the room, right in front of the subject, and at the same time stressing the importance of fairness in the instructions, was the only manipulation that had an effect. When people were forced to think about fairness and could see themselves cheating, they stopped doing it.

Wow man.

You can’t change your mental filters by willpower alone; you have to engage in activities such as meditation or cognitive therapy that train the elephant.

I like that he stresses it

As Epley and Dunning had found, people really are open to information that will predict the behavior of others, but they refuse to adjust their self-assessments.

I don't know why that's such a human thing

People were quite happy to learn about the various forms of self-serving bias and then apply their newfound knowledge to predict others’ responses. But their self-ratings were unaffected. Even when you grab people by the lapels, shake them, and say, “Listen to me! Most people have an inflated view of themselves. Be realistic!” they refuse, muttering to themselves, “Well, other people may be biased, but I really am above average on leadership.”

people want to believe they are on a mission from God, or that they are fighting for some more secular good

He pointed out "more than this" haha.

The anthropologist Clifford Geertz wrote that “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance that he himself has spun.”32 That is, the world we live in is not really one made of rocks, trees, and physical objects; it is a world of insults, opportunities, status symbols, betrayals, saints, and sinners. All of these are human creations which, though real in their own way, are not real in the way that rocks and trees are real.

Hot fire.

The first step is to see it as a game and stop taking it so seriously.

Need that

I love the man who hates not nor exults, who mourns not nor desires . . . who is the same to friend and foe, [the same] whether he be respected or despised, the same in heat and cold, in pleasure and in pain, who has put away attachment and remains unmoved by praise or blame . . . contented with whatever comes his way.

That's the goal man. Be so content with where I am that nothing changes me. Change the mind gradually.

The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease.

Things just are.

Try this now: Think of a recent interpersonal conflict with someone you care about and then find one way in which your behavior was not exemplary. Maybe you did something insensitive (even if you had a right to do it), or hurtful (even if you meant well), or inconsistent with your principles (even though you can readily justify it). When you first catch sight of a fault in yourself, you’ll likely hear frantic arguments from your inner lawyer excusing you and blaming others, but try not to listen. You are on a mission to find at least one thing that you did wrong. When you extract a splinter it hurts, briefly, but then you feel relief, even pleasure. When you find a fault in yourself it will hurt, briefly, but if you keep going and acknowledge the fault, you are likely to be rewarded with a flash of pleasure that is mixed, oddly, with a hint of pride. It is the pleasure of taking responsibility for your own behavior. It is the feeling of honor.

Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well. —EPICTETUS

Happiness can only be found within, by breaking attachments to external things and cultivating an attitude of acceptance.

Set for yourself any goal you want. Most of the pleasure will be had along the way, with every step that takes you closer.

An ideology I have believed for years now

“Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.”

Yes! I feel fidgety when there's nothing to do.

When we combine the adaptation principle with the discovery that people’s average level of happiness is highly heritable,11 we come to a startling possibility: In the long run, it doesn’t much matter what happens to you. Good fortune or bad, you will always return to your happiness setpoint—your brain’s default level of happiness—which was determined largely by your genes.

The Stoic philosophers of Ancient Greece, such as Epictetus, taught their followers to focus only on what they could fully control, which meant primarily their own thoughts and reactions. All other events—the gifts and curses of fortune—were externals, and the true Stoic was unaffected by externals.

Maybe the only way to find happiness therefore is to change one’s own internal setting (for example, through meditation, Prozac, or cognitive therapy) instead of changing one’s environment?

Environment isn't the problem.

So to test the wisdom of the sages properly we must examine this hypothesis: H = S + V, where V = voluntary or intentional activities that cultivate acceptance and weaken emotional attachments.

I like the V idea. All comes to practicing things that make external attachments (kindle, playing cards, more than this) lose weight. Gotta let go sometimes.

One of the active ingredients of noise and traffic, the aspect that helps them get under your skin, is that you can’t control them.

I'm hella attached to control even though my life probably looks like I have none of it.

You never adapt to interpersonal conflict;45 it damages every day, even days when you don’t see the other person but ruminate about the conflict nonetheless.

Been there

“It is vain to say that human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.” (CHARLOTTE BRONTË, 1847)46

Why not both though. Why not strive for some things that are wholdsome and pure, but just not letting it consume you? And not banking on what you're striving for? "I want to do some things but if they don't happen then they don't happen." would that mentAlity work? The goals aren't swallowing someone in that sense. I get fidgety when I'm doing nothing. I have to work on something bigger. Or do something bigger.

Csikszentmihalyi’s big discovery is that there is a state many people value even more than chocolate after sex. It is the state of total immersion in a task that is challenging yet closely matched to one’s abilities.

Yessir! Though I bet chocolate after sex hits the spotttt.

The keys to flow: There’s a clear challenge that fully engages your attention; you have the skills to meet the challenge; and you get immediate feedback about how you are doing at each step (the progress principle).

I had that with fiction writing.

Here’s where the rider has an important role to play: Because the elephant has a tendency to overindulge, the rider needs to encourage it to get up and move on to another activity.

I tell my sub-conscious to not listen to Flow On over and over again because it'll lose its magic (it probably never will). Love you, Jinsang :)

Pleasures should be both savored and varied.

Same thing about Flow On

Variety is the spice of life because it is the natural enemy of adaptation.

Pleasure feels good in the moment, but sensual memories fade quickly, and the person is no wiser or stronger afterwards. Even worse, pleasure beckons people back for more, away from activities that might be better for them in the long run.