On happiness
Here's a rumination on happiness that I've been meaning to post for a while.
There's quite a lot of evidence to suggest that we each have a "happiness set point"; a level of happiness to which we'll bounce back after we get used to just about anything good or bad that happens to us. Win a lottery or lose your job: these things will make you happy or sad for a while, but it's surprising how much we adjust. Even people with "locked in" syndrome, when means are found to communicate with them, generally report that they are happy in their lives, once they get used to it. We can think of this "set point" as a mathematical attractor and the big events of our lives as perturbations in the field.
It tends to be these big things that we think about when we ponder what will make us happy and what will make our lives fulfilled - and yet, their effects are mostly transitory. (Unless the perturbation is great enough to cross the x-axis and cause a break).
Of course, that isn't all there is to it. Other work shows clearly that we can do some fairly simple things that will make us more happy. These tend to be little behavioural habits, rather than big things. Get enough exercise. Each week, write down 3 things that have gone well in the past week or that your are grateful for. Keep a pot plant in your office. Perform 5 acts of kindness in one day. Visualise yourself taking steps to achieve your goals (rather than having achieved your goal). There's evidence that all sorts of little things like that can make a difference (I recommend the book "59 seconds" for more).
So how does this fit in with the "set point"/mathematical attractor model? Perhaps it moves the set point.
In summary, in this model, the big things in life simply perturb us from our set point, while our little day-to-do habits affect the position of this point.
One more plot, just to put it on more sensible axes:
There's quite a lot of evidence to suggest that we each have a "happiness set point"; a level of happiness to which we'll bounce back after we get used to just about anything good or bad that happens to us. Win a lottery or lose your job: these things will make you happy or sad for a while, but it's surprising how much we adjust. Even people with "locked in" syndrome, when means are found to communicate with them, generally report that they are happy in their lives, once they get used to it. We can think of this "set point" as a mathematical attractor and the big events of our lives as perturbations in the field.
It tends to be these big things that we think about when we ponder what will make us happy and what will make our lives fulfilled - and yet, their effects are mostly transitory. (Unless the perturbation is great enough to cross the x-axis and cause a break).
Of course, that isn't all there is to it. Other work shows clearly that we can do some fairly simple things that will make us more happy. These tend to be little behavioural habits, rather than big things. Get enough exercise. Each week, write down 3 things that have gone well in the past week or that your are grateful for. Keep a pot plant in your office. Perform 5 acts of kindness in one day. Visualise yourself taking steps to achieve your goals (rather than having achieved your goal). There's evidence that all sorts of little things like that can make a difference (I recommend the book "59 seconds" for more).
So how does this fit in with the "set point"/mathematical attractor model? Perhaps it moves the set point.
In summary, in this model, the big things in life simply perturb us from our set point, while our little day-to-do habits affect the position of this point.
One more plot, just to put it on more sensible axes: