Why Chasing Happiness Makes Us Miserable

No. The factors that lead to happiness are well known and well researched; there are no 'secrets'. These include:

• Being loving, kind and caring to yourself and others

• Looking after your physical health

• Clarifying and acting on your core values

• Connectedness with others, especially quality time with friends

• Developing qualities such as mindfulness, compassion, gratitude, curiosity and forgiveness

Don't try to make yourself feel happy; you'll almost certainly fail. Instead, allow your feelings to be as they are. If life is not giving you what you want, painful feelings are inevitable, so the best thing is to practice self-compassion and learn some mindfulness skills that will enable you to open up, make room for your painful feelings and allow them to flow through you. At the same time, get in touch with your values; consider what you want to stand for in the face of your challenges and start taking action to build a better life.

Along with the above, take the time to appreciate all those little moments where life does give you what you want: savour your food, smell the flowers, appreciate moments of connection, and so on.

Yes, there is some good that's come from it, through 'learning the hard way' about what does and doesn't work. Many folks have followed a lot of the pop psychology approaches, which are loaded with inaccurate and misleading advice about how to be happy: 'Don't worry, think positive, ask the universe for what you want, rehearse positive affirmations, look at the glass half full' and so on. In the long term, they've found that this stuff just doesn't work.

This is a painful realisation, but it can then lead people to explore scientifically valid approaches to happiness with a solid research base to support them. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is one such example. ACT helps people build a rich and meaningful life while making room for all the feelings that go with it—both the pleasant ones and the painful ones.

The "science of happiness" is more commonly called "positive psychology". However, "positive psychology" studies much more than "happiness"; you can think of it as the study of how to maximise human potential for a rich and meaningful life. Many different models of therapy come under the umbrella of positive psychology, but the one with the largest research base is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which now has over 3000 published scientific studies supporting it.

Happiness as an emotion is a form of internal reward system; it signals to us that we have access to something that's important to us. Our ancient ancestors probably felt happy when they had food, shelter, warmth, and a sense of security within and belonging to the group. Today, it's not much different; happiness is a transient emotion that tells us, in this moment we have what we need and want.

Yes, there is a connection. When we are looking after our physical and psychological health through exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress management and social connection, those things correlate with more happiness. Similarly, if we suffer from poor physical and psychological health, that tends to lower happiness levels.

First, consider there are two different meanings of happiness. The most common meaning of happiness is a sense of pleasure or contentment; the ancient Greeks called this 'hedemonia'. (This is where the word 'hedonism' comes from.) Less commonly, happiness is defined as a sense of flourishing that arises from living an ethical and meaningful life, wisely guided by one's core values; the ancient Greeks called this 'eudemonia'.

You can tell you're happy in the first sense of the word because you have pleasurable feelings of joy and contentment. You can tell you're happy in the second sense of the word when you feel in touch with your core values, behaving like the person you want to be, being 'true to your heart', doing good in the world, caring, contributing and building meaningful relationships.

Not really. As described in the response above, there are two different meanings of happiness – a sense of pleasure or contentment (‘hedemonia’), or a sense of flourishing that arises from living an ethical and meaningful life, guided by one’s core values (‘eudemonia’).

Life satisfaction is an attitude to one's life overall, not just to one's level of happiness; it's an appraisal of all the different elements of one's life, including work, family, friends, health, social life, country of residence, and so on.

As described in previous responses, let's acknowledge there are two different meanings of happiness – a sense of pleasure or contentment (‘hedemonia’), or a sense of flourishing that arises from living an ethical and meaningful life, guided by one’s core values (‘eudemonia’).

I don't think you can have too much happiness in the second meaning of the word. However, in the first meaning of the word, there can certainly be problems if you spend too much time, energy and money in pursuit of pleasure and lose touch with living your values in the process.

Sadness is not the opposite of happiness. Both are normal emotional states that come and go as you live your life. Sadness is a normal, healthy human emotion – a painful feeling of sorrow, usually in response to some sort of loss. Sadness helps us to slow down and reorganise in the face of this loss; to recoup our energy, take enough time to adjust to the loss and refocus on what's important.

'Selfish' means lacking consideration for others, looking out primarily for things that benefit oneself. So yes, you can pursue happiness in this 'selfish' manner, but you're not likely to be successful. Why not? Because so much of our happiness is due to our relationships with others.

If we are kind, caring and compassionate to the people we live with, actively look after them and work on building rich, loving relationships; this will greatly contribute to our own happiness. So we're much better to seek happiness by being generous and caring than through being selfish and inconsiderate.

Of course, we do need to find a balance. We do need to take care of ourselves and look after our own needs, as well as caring for and respecting the needs of others. Otherwise, we'll become exhausted and depleted, or miserable and resentful. As they say on airplanes, when the oxygen masks drop, put your own on first before assisting others.

Yes, if you are below the poverty line, even a little bit of money can make a big difference. But if you're above the poverty line, then for most people, more money makes very little difference to happiness levels.

I'm not overly keen on the term ‘striving’. I prefer fostering, building, or cultivating – and there's no 'should' in it 🙂

Rather than seeking happiness, we are likely to be much better off if we focus on fostering, building, or cultivating a rich and meaningful life. We can do this by living by our values (your heart's deepest desires for how you want to treat yourself, others and the world around you); this gives our lives a deep sense of meaning and purpose.

My starting point would be to normalise it: it's normal to feel sad, and it’s normal to struggle with those feelings. I'd then want to help them tap into self-compassion: acknowledging your pain and responding with kindness. I'd ask:

“If someone you love were feeling this way in similar circumstances, and you wanted to reach out to them with genuine kindness and support – what kind of words would you say to them? What kind of deeds would you do for them?”