John Place online

There are a lot of misconceptions floating around out there regarding happiness.

Let’s take a look at the top 7 happiness myths so we can address them quickly and effectively whenever they begin to affect us:

1. You can’t learn to be happier: It wasn’t long ago that researchers believed that every human being was born with a set “happiness point,” but thankfully, the growing field of positive psychology has proven that happiness is greatly influenced by factors that you have the power to control or influence: friendships, romantic relationships, finances, careers, and mental habits, to name a few. In other words: yes, you can learn to be happier.

2. The quest for happiness is all in your mind: Yes, happiness is an experience of the mind. But no, the quest for happiness is not 100% mental. Some people would have you believe that we should all learn to be Jedis or Zen Masters, capable of being happy with no regard for our surroundings or circumstances. I hate to burst the bubble on this philosophy, but it’s just not realistic. The real world can – and will – affect your happiness. To use an obvious example, if you had a wild dog chewing on your leg, I would humbly suggest that you’d be better off removing the dog than trying to convince yourself to be happy in spite of it. I say this not to be flippant, but to illustrate that sometimes the quickest path to happiness is addressing our internal attitudes, and sometimes it’s changing our external realities.

3. Thinking about happiness will make you unhappy: Some people insist that thinking about happiness will make you unhappy, but it’s more accurate to say that until you take the time to consider your own happiness, the things making you unhappy may remain hidden from you, doing their work unnoticed, silently dragging you down. It’s better to bring them into the light so you can deal with them. Over time, the net effect is positive.

4. Being rich will make you happier: Once your basic needs are met, more money does not equal more happiness. In the words of Richard Easterlin, “Few generalizations in the social sciences enjoy such wide-ranging support as that of the diminishing marginal utility of income.” While it’s true that the jump from poverty to middle-class yields a substantial happiness increase, every additional dollar from that point forward provides ever-decreasing benefit, and other factors (such as job satisfaction and relationships) become more important than ever.

5. Money doesn’t matter: Unfortunately, some people take the “money can’t buy me happiness” mindset to illogical extremes, denying any connection between money and happiness. Oh, there is a connection, and if you’re not making enough money to afford necessities or to pay your electric bill, you’ve probably experienced the connection firsthand. Making at least a middle-class wage is a proven way to boost your happiness because it allows you to compare favorably to others and to afford the things that society considers necessary.

6. A life of leisure will make you happy: We all have fantasies of endless vacations on sun-swept beaches, but studies have shown that a life of leisure quickly leads to boredom. The extent to which you make so much money that you never have to make any more is the extent to which you must confront the greatest challenge of all: yourself. This progression from basic needs to self-actualization is classic Maslow. And if you’re lucky enough to figure out what you want to do with all your freedom (many aren’t so lucky), you’ll probably find that you agree with Harvard Psychology Professor Tal Ben-Shahar, who says that in spite of all your freedom, you cannot be happy without work. And by work, I mean productive, fulfilling activity, not necessarily a 9 to 5 job.

7. Happiness is just a mood: There are two types of happiness. Firstly, there’s the present-tense emotion of happiness, the mood. Secondly, there’s our holistic evaluation of the way our lives are going. In other words, just because you’re sad or angry right now doesn’t mean that you’re unhappy with your life in general. Many personal development techniques focus exclusively on state management – controlling your moods. And while I admit that state management is important, it’s also important to give the other type of happiness its due by focusing on activities that fill your life with meaning and purpose.

When it comes to happiness myths, this list is really only the tip of the iceberg; maybe we’ll cover the rest in a future article. But for now, let’s reflect on the way these particular myths may have propagated within each of our lives, influencing our daily choices and even our long-term aspirations.

How many of the ambitions we aspire to truly hold promise of fulfillment and happiness? If our idea of happiness is clouded by misconceptions, probably not many.

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