I recently had the positive experience of speaking with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar on the Nature & Nurture Podcast. Tal is a psychologist, co-founder of the Academy of Happiness Research, and author of many books on happiness. be happier When to be happy.
Thal helped redefine happiness research not only as a field of study within psychology, but also as a new interdisciplinary science that incorporates neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and the humanities.
Happiness and anti-vulnerability
What does happy mean? In our podcast, Tal and I discuss happiness, as the word is commonly used, is more than just joy. In Tal’s eyes, happiness is close to meaning.
Having a good life doesn’t mean feeling good all the time. Misfortune or tragedy befalls us, and to be happy (in the sense of “joy”) when such is literally mania.
A better solution is to be less breakable. Being less fragile means being able to withstand the hardships of life. But being unbreakable is also not the key to happiness. Happiness is not the same as not being unhappy. If you’re not unhappy, you’re just “fine.”
True anti-vulnerability, true happiness, comes not in spite of tragedy, but from those who become anti-fragile in spite of it.
The people who are most content with their lives are the better measure of happiness in my view, but not the ones who are escaping hardship. Rather, it is someone who can overcome difficulties and pursue something meaningful.
find meaning
Having meaningful goals, making life worth living, is the most important aspect of living a good life. Without this, even if you become anti-frail, you will not be happy. you are just “fine”.
Oddly enough, we can choose to pursue what is most meaningful, but that emotion is beyond our control. How Personality Shapes Our Own Interests is the subject of another article (or textbook), but I’m sure there’s something for everyone.
This is not simple optimism. The reason we have evolved so many different personalities is because there are countless ecological niches where unique combinations of traits are most optimal. It has been hypothesized to be an adaptive evolutionary strategy to avoid.
an evolutionary mismatch
Just as evolution has given us different strategies to pursue meaningful things, it has given us a standard checklist for happiness. There is also.
For most of human history, we lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. We lived in a close-knit family tribe. We spent all our time outdoors. We exercised every day out of necessity, not for fun or to keep fit. Our diet (which was never a guarantee when there was enough food) puts modern natural paleo diets to shame.
Tal and I discuss how most of this is no longer true and how it contributes to our prevalence of unhappiness.
We spend most of our time indoors. Our social communication often lacks face-to-face connections. Finding time to exercise and eat healthy is seen as a luxury or a difficult chore. All of this was true even before the pandemic hit, and only exacerbated these problems.
The solutions to our global mental health problem seem so obvious, almost clichéd. Exercise more, eat healthier foods, spend more time with friends and family, spend time in nature, and pursue a meaningful career. We already know all of this, so why is it so difficult to implement?
delayed gratification
Evolution, as our only motivation, did not give us these optimal solutions. We have a constant internal battle between approach and avoidance motives, between immediate gratification and delayed gratification. Moreover, our capacity for reason and delayed gratification has only recently evolved. Our neocortex is weak compared to the ancient limbic system that governs ancient motivational processes such as hunger.
Imagine you are at a party and a slice of cake is calling to you. You’ve been waiting for healthier food at home, but now you’re hungry.
Success or failure of evolution if you eat cake? Objectively, fitness is declining in this context. But for more than 99% of his human history, choosing foods high in calories and on the spot was the most optimal strategy.
Delayed gratification can only be practiced in the most stable environments, and even then it is very difficult to combat our more primitive urges for immediacy.
This same conflict governs all of our decision-making, including the highest-level goal of the pursuit of meaning.
Even when meaningful goals are identified, delayed gratification has a necessary component. Have you ever achieved something meaningful and relevant? Often, the higher the goal, the more meaning it has.
For example, most people seek education not because it is fun, but because of its prospects for future safety. Most people study because it’s meaningful, not because it’s fun.
science of happiness
Treating happiness as an interdisciplinary science not only offers the advantage of understanding it through the lens of neuropsychology and evolutionary biology. It is a cross-cultural historical science that can
Philosophers and poets have tried to clarify what it means to live a good life long before psychologists. Anthropologists document cross-cultural norms and differences for expressing emotions and socially bonding. Artists and musicians of every generation are looking for new ways to inspire others, and scientists and engineers are constantly on the lookout for new discoveries and inventions that make our lives better.
It takes all of these perspectives to gain the true science of happiness, and mastering happiness in yourself requires becoming a master of vulnerability, delayed gratification, and the changes brought about by our modern environment.
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