Happiness — Can You Synthesize Happiness?

All of us want to be happy. We’re born pleasure-seekers. Right since when we were babies, we loved the taste of sweet, and hated the taste of bitter. We liked to look at beautiful, rather than plain, faces. We liked to listen to consonant, instead of dissonant, melodies.

Despite our disposition to seek happiness, many of us are unhappy. But we can be happy. All the time. For that, we have to understand what happiness is.

Happiness doesn’t fit within a concise definition. Happiness goes beyond the fleeting physical sensations of pleasure. Happiness is like a background emotion that underlines the mind even in the face of physical discomfort or emotional strain. Yes, people can report happiness in the most trying circumstances.

Many studies show that even life-altering events like losing a loved one, not getting a much-coveted promotion or failing in academics have far less impact, and for a much less duration than people expect them to have.

How does this happen? Human beings have something that we might think of as a psychological immune system, a kind of survival system. This system is made of largely non-conscious cognitive processes that help them to feel better about the worlds in which they find themselves.

This is what Dan Gilbert  calls “synthesized happiness” (watch the very popular and interesting video below). When you accept things you get, even when it is not what you aimed initially, you get “synthetic happiness”. Synthetic happiness is as real and enduring as “natural happiness” that is produced when we get what we want.  We believe that it is what happens to us that makes us happy or unhappy. But it is really what we tell ourselves about what happens to us that leads to our state of mind. The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.

Natural happiness is based on the freedom to choose or reject an option, and is what people prefer. But this freedom to choose is the enemy of synthetic happiness.

When people are presented with multiple choices they are unhappy, because they keep fretting over what if they had made another choice, but those who accept whatever has been allotted to them are happy.

The father of modern capitalism, Adam Smith said, “The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life seems to arise from overrating the difference between one permanent situation and another … Some of these situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others, but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice, or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse for the horror of our own injustice.”

This is what Bhagvad Gita advocates too, when it says “Karmanyeva Adhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana” (”You have a right to perform your prescribed action, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your action.”). Which means do your duty dispassionately and accept whatever results that accrue as a result. This makes sense when you realize that for a particular event or result, there are are many causative factors, all of which are not under our control. There is no point holding yourself responsible for it.

Again, this doesn’t mean that if an unfavorable event has happened as a result of, or despite, your action, you should simply shrug and walk away. You analyze the situation and determine what your next action should be.

The same sentiments are expressed in the “Serenity Prayer” by Reinhold Niebuhr.

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

In the next article, we will examine how happiness maps into brain’s physiological units. We will also see if it is possible to make people “happy” by electrically stimulating the pleasure centers of the brain.

Read also: Happiness Through Meditative Mind Control

                Does Meditation Give You a Headache?