Happiness Is Not A State You Arrive At
The promise of permanent happiness is the reason most people quietly conclude they have failed at it.
The promise in the usual version of this advice is the problem with it. Permanent happiness is not a condition anybody reaches and then holds, and setting it as the target makes an ordinary Tuesday feel like a failure.
What does exist is a short list of practices that reliably raise the floor. None is dramatic. All of them are dull to read about and difficult to keep, which is the honest reason so few people keep them.
People, before anything else
The Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed the same people since 1938, which makes it the longest running study of its kind. Its finding has held for eight decades. The strongest predictor of how well a life goes is not income, achievement or health at the start. It is the quality of a person’s close relationships. Nothing else on this list comes close, and most of us spend our attention on the items that matter less.
In the vast cosmos of life, our purpose is a unique constellation, waiting for us to connect the dots and illuminate the path of our joyous cosmic journey.
Notice what is already working
Dissatisfaction runs on comparison, so the count of what you have registered matters more than what you actually hold. Working systems are silent, which is precisely why they go unnoticed. Making yourself name a few of them daily changes nothing outside you and a good deal inside.
Something to be useful for
Purpose does not have to be large. It has to be specific, and it has to involve somebody other than yourself. A person with a reason to get up has a structure that holds on the days when the mood does not.
Kindness, for the plainest reason
Doing something for another person reliably lifts the doer, and the effect is larger when the act is small, direct and unannounced. This is the cheapest item on the list and the most immediately available.
Stay a beginner at something
Learning holds attention in a way that comfort does not. Being visibly bad at something new is unpleasant for a fortnight and then becomes the most interesting part of the week.
Be where you are
Most unhappiness is either a rehearsal of something finished or a rehearsal of something that has not happened. Neither is available to be acted on. The present is the only part of it you can do anything about.
What to expect from all this
Not a permanent state. A higher ordinary, and a shorter recovery when something knocks you down. That is a smaller promise than the one usually made here, and unlike the larger one, it is true.
