Joyful Living
From the outside, joyful living seems relative. I shall briefly discuss my personal experiences and observations before voicing my opinions. My 14-year-old kid thinks weekends are the only truly happy time because he plays cricket with his friends. One of our neighbours is a devout believer who finds satisfaction in attending morning temple speeches. If he misses a day due to domestic or professional issues, he is quite upset and gloomy all day. Some of our most esteemed political leaders find satisfaction in applause.
Happiness is in the soul, not in goods or gold. A happy life starts with laughter. Man is the only creature who can laugh and giggle. The light rises, and the birds sing without laughter or giggling. Most religions have taught seriousness for millennia. Few nations have forgotten how to laugh due to their reverence for seriousness. The first thing that happens to an enlightened person is a deep belly laugh … laughter because of the sheer stupidity of having been searching for something that has been inside him for centuries. But he never looked there. He searched the world carrying within himself the treasure that is available in a fraction of a second. If you have spectacles and are looking everywhere, and you suddenly realize they're on your nose, it's tough not to laugh or giggle. Buddha said it correctly – there is no path to happiness. Happiness is the only path.
The best medicine is laughter. When the United States of America entered WWII in 1941, patriotism was high, and many young men rushed into service. Hollywood stars, too. Bob Hope and his troupe performed thousands of times for European and Far Eastern troops, travelling millions of miles. Hospitals were visited in dangerous combat zones. Laughter's therapeutic effectiveness was never questioned by the patients he visited. When someone laughs, muscles relax, breathing deepens, blood is better oxygenated, and pain and melancholy disappear. Shaking with laughter makes negative thinking difficult. Clown visits are therapeutic for hospitalised young children.
Apart from laughing and giggling, the most important thing in life is to be social. Some scientists believe human language developed because of our sociability. Homo sapiens have survived only because they had social interaction. Social interaction has been widely ignored in the current era. People are not socially attached to each other. You can have 5000 friends on Facebook but when there is an emergency or when they need someone, there is not even one person they can call. On every social media app, people are liking and sharing posts but they do not have friends in real life.
Let us now focus on synthetic happiness vs. natural happiness. If I ask who is happier: a person who won a Rs. 5 crore lottery a year ago OR a paralytic man recovering from a stroke, most people will say that it is the lottery winner. But in a research study, it was shown that both fared the same on the happiness index. However, there is a difference between the two. Synthetic happiness occurs only when we get what we want. Natural happiness comes from within. You cannot predict what will happen tomorrow but if you are joyous from within, you will still know how to be joyous tomorrow and continue on the path to salvation. Those who are slaves to accomplishments and achievements can never be happy.
Nowadays, youngsters are hooked onto a new drug. It is super addictive and creates the misperception that it lowers anxiety and improves mood. But it actually makes our lives miserable. It is called ‘social media’. But there is nothing social about it. It bombards our brains daily with horrific stories and fake news. It is to the mind what sugar is to the body. We are no longer Homo sapiens but Homo screeners. It has created dark emotions like selfishness, jealousy, greed and lust. It has made us calculative.
Let us now discuss how happiness is experienced. It is about the overall experience of pleasure or the meaning of life. Pleasant moments bring happiness. For some, pleasant moments are about completing a task. For others, it could be about donating money to various charities. For yet others, it could be about helping others add meaning to their lives. For us teachers, we keep teaching without any expectations. This is our way of being happy.
Just like an onion, we too have layers to us. These could be impediments to us being joyful or happy. For example, layer 1 is mood. If it is positive, it releases good chemicals, if bad then it releases good chemicals. Layer 2 could be our internal wiring. It is about negative patterns that can be changed. Some of us like making fun of people or teasing people. Some of us have the habit of taking people for granted. Layer 3 is time. Time can take you to the past or to the future but only the present time keeps you alive. If you think of positive moments in the past, then you’ll be happy. But if you keep thinking about bad events in the past, you’ll be gloomy all the time. Similarly, if you keep thinking of all that you will get in the future, then too you will feel bad that you don’t have it in the present moment. Layer 4 is ego and identity. It is all about the mind and who you think you are. Layer 5 is limiting beliefs which means that people are always making presumptions about events, about themselves and about others. Layer 6 is desire which leads to jealousy and emptiness. In general, if you work on your layers, you will be able to control your dark or negative emotions.
The science of positive psychology, as defined by Dr. Martin Seligman, is not the science that measures life but it is the science that helps you understand how to live. This is supplementary to traditional psychology. Traditional psychology says smiling will release happiness chemicals. So you must keep smiling to stay happy and positive. If traditional psychology takes you from minus to zero, positive psychology takes you from zero into the positive realm.
Let’s talk about the happiness ratio. Dr. Seligman introduced it in the year 1990. It is not possible to be happy all the time. But the happiness ratio is about 3:1 characteristics. For every 3 positive characteristics, a person can have 1 negative characteristic. This is the ideal ratio.
Can happiness be learnt? Prof. Sonja Lyubomirsky says that a person can be happy genetically. The chances of that are 50%. Circumstances will give you happiness and the chances of that are 10%. But humans can perform intentional activities on a daily basis that gives the remainder 40%. Therefore, we can say that happiness can be learnt. Prof. Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone is also of the opinion that happiness can be learnt because the brain is plastic and not elastic. Elastic stretches but goes back to its original form. The plastic brain keeps changing with every encounter and situation. The concept of neuroplasticity says that our brain changes everyday depending on what we do. Both these researches support the claim that happiness can indeed be learnt and contribute to the 40% intentional activities.
I want to give you a formula which will help you reflect on changing happiness but I have made some modifications to it – PERMM effect. P – positive emotions, E – engagement, R – relationships, M – meaning and purpose and M – momentum. The original PERMA effect has A – accomplishment but I have change that to M – momentum.
P – positive emotions. Practise positive emotions and keep away from people having dark emotions. It is not possible to always be positive so practise the 3:1 rule. Keep away from negative emotions like jealousy, anger, distress, stress, fear, hatred, frustration, lust, greed, etc. You can have negative emotions but balance that by practising positive emotions.
E – engagement. It is also known as flow. Keep yourself busy all the time. It keeps you happy. In Romancing with Life, Dev Anand’s autobiography, someone asked him, “How are you so happy all the time despite having so many flop films?” For 20 – 25 years, all the films he produced and directed were flops. His response was, “For me, the biggest happiness in life is to keep myself busy because that keeps me away from negative emotions.” This is a fact proven by the great Dev Anand.
R – relationships also known as social connection, social support. Relationships are the first and most important indicator of happiness but it should be a positive relationship and not a negative one. If Homo sapiens is still alive while others have perished, it is because we have a social brain. So start listening in your relationships. It helps you learn. Respond only when it is active or constructive. That is the best way to be happy. Relationships are not only about romantic love. It can be a relationship between two friends, siblings, parents. Always try to be the listener. Sometimes, you may feel that you are only listening. It is very easy to allow that negative emotion to come in quickly. But you must keep practising the art of listening and responding only when it is active or constructive. There is a saying in Hindi, “Bolna hamari zaroorat honi chahiye, aadat nahin.” When we talk we do not learn. We learn only when we listen.
M – meaning of life. It is about finding meaning in your life; what you do every day. Why do you have a job? It is not for the salary but for a purpose. But the day you think about salary, you stop learning, you stop being happy because then you are only happy when salary comes. Your attachment is not to the institution or your purpose but to money. You need to have a purpose. For everything that you do in life, find out the meaning and purpose.
M – momentum. I believe that accomplishment or achievement will create toxicity in your life. If you always think about accomplishment, then sooner or later it creates negativity in the mind. You will want to finish a task for the sake of finishing. You will always run after that accomplishment. You must have momentum instead. It will help you reach your goal slowly but you will also grow consistently; unlike the accomplishment phenomenon. Even if you fail, you will not have a bad taste in your mouth.
According to Prof. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” As a student, if you are working on something difficult, say a mathematics or accounting or finance problem, and you manage to solve it on your own, it is going to give you happiness for sure. But this happiness comes only when you have a positive relationship with the challenge and the skills to take it on. If you do not have the skills to meet the challenge, it will give you anxiety, it will feel burdensome and you will have the fear of failure. If you have big challenges, try to develop the skills to meet those challenges. If you have skills but you do not have challenges to match them, then you need to look for those challenges. It will give you flow in life which is very important. In the example of Dev sahab, he had the flow as he had the skills to take on the challenges in his life.
Many people ask if there is a link between optimism and happiness. You must read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. There were three groups of people identified in the German concentration camps. The first were those who would keep thinking that everything would be fine. The second group believed they would be saved by God’s grace and the third group would tell each other that the situation was difficult and they would do anything to survive this situation. All the groups were optimistic but the third group was a bit different. Optimism is not about talking and thinking positive things. Optimism is about visualisation. The third group visualised building a new house and sitting with their family. This actually happened when they survived the Nazi camp. Optimistic people live the reality and are happy compared to pessimistic people. But when you add visualisation to optimism, they are the greatest amongst us.
There is mindfulness – mindful eating, mindful reading, mindful walking. I want to talk about ‘bitfulness’ – the art of having a mindful relationship with technology. We can do this by managing our time, managing our privacy. We need to learn our digital quotient because today, on an average, 70% people are unhappy because of technology. This is because of how they handle social media, because of how they get information from different sources. To be joyful, we must know how to navigate technology.
Another thing we ignore is ‘infollution’ which is nothing but information pollution. It is the negative consequences of technological advancement such as cyber-bullying or technology addiction or child porn. Infollution has polluted ours and our children’s minds. We have neglected our duty to carefully consider the impact of this infollution on the youth. Attend to your phone as little as needed. Use your gadgets less instead of day and night. 50% of your problems will be solved like this.
Dr. Gurudutta Japee is currently Head of Department, Department of Advanced Business Studies, University School of Commerce, Gujarat University. He is advisor to the Department of Finance, Government of India. He is also the Founder Trustee and Chairman of GAP (Grand Academic Portal). Dr. Japee has co-authored more than 60 books on a wide range of subjects including philosophy and emotions.