What does it mean to be happy?

To live a good life doesn't mean to feel good all the time. Misfortunes and tragedies happen to us, and to be happy (in the sense of "pleasure") during these times would be madness.

Instead, it would be better to become antifragile.

To become antifragile is to be able to handle the hard things that happen in life.

But getting stronger isn't the key to happiness either.

Not being unhappy is not the same as being happy.

If you are not unhappy, you are just "fine."

People who become strong not because of tragedy but because of it are the ones who are truly happy.

The people who are most happy with their lives, which I think is a better way to measure happiness, are not those who avoid hard times.

Instead, those who can get through hard times do something worthwhile.

Finding Meaning

The most important thing about living a good life is a goal that makes your life worth living.

Without this, you won't be happy even if you become strong.

You are just "fine."

We can choose to do what feels most important to us, but we can't always control what makes us feel that way.

How our personalities affect our interests is the subject of another blog post, but everyone has their unique calling.

This isn't naive optimism. We have different personalities because there are so many ecological niches where various combinations of traits work best.

Even having a depressive personality has been thought to be an evolutionary way to avoid getting sick, despite being a clear disadvantage.

A Mismatch in Evolution

Evolution has given us many ways to look for something meaningful, and it has also given us a standard list of things that make us happy.

This is both a good and a bad thing.

We were hunter-gatherers for most of our history.

We lived in tribes that were like families.

All our time was spent outside.

We worked out every day, not for fun or to stay in shape, but because we had to.

When there was enough food, which wasn't always the case, our diets would make the natural paleo diets of today look bad.

Now, most of the time, we're inside.

Face-to-face interactions are often missing from our social interactions.

People think that making time to exercise and eat well is a luxury or a challenging task.

These things were true even before the pandemic, which only worsened things.

The answers to the problem of mental health around the world are so obvious that they almost sound like cliches.

Do more physical activity, eat healthy foods, drink more water, spend more time with friends and family, spend time in nature, get better quality sleep,  and look for a career that has meaning.

We already know all of this, so why is it so hard to do?

Deferred Satisfaction

Evolution did not give us these best answers as the only things to drive us.

We always have to choose between wanting to approach something and avoid it or between wanting something right away and wanting it later.

Also, our ability to reason and put off gratification didn't develop until much later. Our neocortex is weak compared to our ancient limbic system, which controls old drives like hunger.

Suppose you're at a party and a piece of cake is calling your name.

You have better food waiting for you at home. Still, you are hungry now, and this high-sugar, high-fat food is precisely what our taste buds evolved to like most because it has a lot of energy.

If you eat the cake, does that mean evolution worked or failed?

From an outsider's point of view, you're less fit now.

Yet, for more than 99 per cent of human history, the best thing to do would have been to go for the calorie-dense food close by.

You can only practise delayed gratification in the most stable situations. Even then, fighting against our primal drives for instant gratification is tough.

This conflict drives our decisions, even the most important ones, like finding meaning in life.

No matter how important the goal is, a part of delayed gratification is needed.

Have you ever done something important and valuable at the same time?

Often, the more transparent the goal, the more meaning it gives.

Most people go to school, for instance, not because it's fun but because they want to be safe in the future.

Most people study not because it is the most fun thing to do but because it is the most important thing to do.

How to Make People Happy:

When you look at happiness as an interdisciplinary science, you can learn about it through neuropsychology and evolutionary biology lenses. Still, you can also learn about happiness through the lens of other fields.

It is an interdisciplinary, historical science that can also learn from the humanities.

Before, psychologists, philosophers and poets tried to explain what it means to live a good life.

Anthropologists have studied how people from different cultures show their feelings and form relationships.

Scientists and engineers are always looking for new discoveries or inventions that will make our lives better. Artists and musicians of every generation look for new ways to inspire people.

We need all of these points of view to have an actual science of happiness. If we want to master happiness, we must learn how to deal with antifragility, delayed gratification, and the changes our modern environment brings.

We’ll come back to this topic in a future blog post

We all need a helping hand from time to time. Please share this post with as many people as possible. You never know who might need it.

You Belong Here.