The Price of Happiness

Happiness seems right there ready and waiting for us, at least in the movies or in fiction, and it’s just up to us to reach out and grab it. So why do many of us find that we’re not living so happily ever after? Maggie Tiojakin looks to science for the answers.

Put the blame on Walt Disney. Most of us have grown up on a diet of his beautifully packaged Disney-esque moral tales that teach us (and our children) how we should all aspire to achieve the prescribed happily-ever-afters, where the handsome prince always gets his beautiful love, deadbeat parents are given a second chance to clean up their acts and the big bad wolf who eats little girls for breakfast gets his comeuppance.

And then we graduate to our own adult-style fairy-tales spun by the advertising industry, promising a better life if we dip into our savings to buy the latest sedan, slap on the newest miracle cream or gorge on the tastiest ice-cream bar this side of paradise.

“The external variables to which we are exposed on a regular basis are as influential in shaping the way we pursue happiness as our internal experience,” writes Martin Seligman in Authentic Happiness “…and the media makes up for the majority portion of such variables.”

Seligman’s theory on how the media affects our pursuit of happiness is shared by a number of social thinkers, such as David Brooks, whose best-selling book, Bobos In Paradise, concludes that our current preoccupation with the so-called “sophisticated lifestyle” — where we choose rye over white bread, organic vegetables over canned — has less to do with our physical well-being and more with our quest to achieve mental balance.

“Members of the educated class are distinguished not only by what they buy but by how they buy,” writes Brooks. “More and more people are exercising their consumptive drive on items which give them the most Zen-like sense of satisfaction … because we absorb everything the media feeds us.”

Brooks urges his readers to observe the way people order drinks at coffee shops, the variety of options we are suddenly confronted by. It’s no longer just “a cup of coffee” but rather “a double espresso, half decaf-half caffeinated, with mocha and room for milk” or “a vente almond Frappuccino made from the Angolan blend with raw sugar and a hint of cinnamon”.

To an unknowing pair of ears, the complex litany of what would otherwise have been a simple request for black coffee may sound somewhat obscene. Yet, according to Brooks, this new approach toward selective shopping forays is our way of exploring our needs and expressing our emotions — so each purchase may bring us closer to contentment.

That’s nice, but it doesn’t work.

Social psychologist Daniel Gilbert, who has spent the past few years studying the traits of human happiness, is of the belief that people in general have “inaccurate, flawed ideas” of what happiness is. Known to most of his Harvard students as Professor Happiness, Gilbert is the author of The New York Times’ best-seller, Stumbling on Happiness, in which he discusses at length the methods we apply in a bid to attain happiness.

“The problem is in expectation,” says Gilbert, as quoted by the Times. “What we’ve been seeing in my lab, over and over again, is that people have an inability to predict what will make [them] happy — or unhappy … If you can’t tell which futures are better than others, it’s hard to find happiness.”

More than that, the problem also lies in the way we perceive happiness. When we hear someone utter the words “I want to be happy” or “I deserve to be happy”, we immediately nod our heads in an agreement as though we knew exactly what was being said. However, the phrase “I want to be happy” suggests that happiness can be attained at will, or as if it were a place we could arrive in and leave behind whenever we pleased.

“Few of us can accurately gauge how we will feel tomorrow or next week,” says Gilbert. “That’s why when you go to the supermarket on an empty stomach, you’ll buy too much; and if you shop after a big meal, you’ll buy too little.”

And why the grass always seems to be greener on the other side.

When our neighbors have a bigger house, fancier car, better job than we do, we readily assume they are happier than we are — at least, until we manage to get our hands on the biggest house, fanciest car and best job anyone can ever have; then the roles are reversed.

Rafian Moeljadi used to think a good career in the field of his choice would make him feel generally happier about his life, but as soon as his career took off he found himself living the life he had never wanted.

“Now I wish I can go back to the life I had before,” says Rafian, who has recently been promoted as an account manager at an advertising agency based in Jakarta. “Because when I wanted this position I didn’t think of the responsibilities that came with it, or the amount of time I would have to spend away from my family.”

According to Gilbert, we are often so wrong at predicting our own happiness or unhappiness that the one emotion we constantly feel is disappointment at missing the mark. We may think a pay rise will make us celebrate the good life forever, or that the death of a loved one will depress us for as long as we live — but the truth is neither the good things nor the bad things stay for long enough to account for any profound change in our immediate future.

Rafian admits the new job has a few interesting perks — and that they helped ease the transition process from his old life to his new one. Nevertheless, what has really happened, based on Gilbert’s theory, is that he is readjusting his expectation-meter to accommodate his current situation.

“People have remarkable talent for finding ways to soften the impact of negative events,” says Gilbert. “Thus they mistakenly expect such blows to be much more devastating than they turn out to be.”

Unfortunately, the same can be said of positive events — we tend to expect certain sensations to sway us, render us whole, until the moment arrives and nothing happens. It’s not unlike Teflon: every emotional bit slides off the surface. Except maybe when there’s money involved.

The debate on whether or not money can buy happiness has been going on for a long time, yet no one seems to be able to say for sure what the correct answer is. In a study conducted in the United Kingdom two years ago, more than 10,000 people who responded to the survey rated their level of happiness according to wealth, health and social relations.

With hopes of actually putting a price tag on happiness, the team of social scientists from the University of London finally gathered all the results and calculated the discrepancies on a “satisfaction scale”. This way, positive emotions are equated with a pay rise while negative emotions with a pay deduction.

“One of the things we wanted to find out was … can money buy the greatest amount of happiness for us?” says Dr. Nattavudh Powdthavee, one of the research scientists, as quoted by the Daily Mail.

An interesting calculation method puts social interactions at a worth of between US$60,000 and $140,000 a year; marriage is valued at $90,000 a year; and serious health problems at minus $850,000 a year. It was hardly a surprise that the research found financial gains, however tempting, really have little influence on how we perceive happiness.

“One potential explanation is that social activities tend to require our attention while they are being experienced, so that the joy derived from them lasts longer in our memory,” says Dr. Powdthavee.

Seligman is on a similar train of thought: While money can help fill the emptiness with which we are often plagued, the solution is usually of a temporary nature. What he recommends is for us to engage in an altruistic act, because “it is only by giving to others that we can truly receive”. As part of his positive psychology teaching, Seligman believes in the advantage of sending positive energy out into the world — Pay It Forward-style — one charity at a time.

Actress and philanthropist Rima Melati seconds this opinion. “If we can help others who are less fortunate than us, then why don’t we? It’s good for our souls, our sanity.”

In the end, when all the money in the world will bring only a fancier type of loneliness, a bigger bed to fill and a larger television screen to waste our nights, what matters most is the people we have around us.

“The best predictor of happiness is human relationships and the amount of time people spend with family and friends,” says Gilbert. “We know it’s significantly more important than money and somewhat more important than health.”

As for happy endings …

“There are no happy endings,” writes Seligman. “There are only moments — billions of them — which we ought to savor one by one as we go through life.”

Gilbert agrees. “If you take a scale that goes from zero to 100, people normally report their level of happiness at about 75,” he says. “We keep trying to get to 100, and sometimes we get there: but we don’t stay long.”

Because, in real life, the guy doesn’t always get the girl: Sometimes he puts her on a plane and lets her ride off into the sunset with another guy. Most times, he does not die of a broken heart.

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