Have you ever wondered why were you not as thrilled as
you imagined you would be once you graduated, bought the latest phone, a brand
new car, settled in a comfy house, got a better job, went on your dream
vacation…? When our hopes and desires come finally true, why aren’t we
extremely happy but rather lightly satisfied? The same goes for bad and
unfortunate events; you can be fired, lose all of your money and your
house, get sick, experience the death of a dear one… And you’ll may assume that if
such hardship occurs, you’ll be awfully miserable and sad, but the truth is,
you’ll feel down for a short period of time only to get back to your mildly dissatisfied
mode. In other words, no one is ever fully happy or fully depressed in the long
run, regardless the external circumstances. It got us thus wondering if this
broadly stable state of mind is a wicked curse or is it a liberating gift
instead!
In the mid-‘80s; psychologists decided to study happiness,
and the first thing they started with was a simple survey. The point was to
determine and collect two variations: 1- on a scale of 1 to 10, how people are
happy in the present moment and 2- what’s been going on in their life. The results
were startling though kind of expected: most of the people answered ‘7’ all the
time; whether a person had just won the lottery or lost an arm in a car
accident, the level of happiness would rise or dip for a while, then eventually
returns to the constant seven!
And this is actually both good and bad news.
The bright side is that, ultimately, no matter
how much our life sucks, no matter how poor or unlucky we are, at least we are
not condemned to feel unhappy continuously. It is also a form of a universal justice;
the crazy rich people who sleep on silk sheets feel as much happiness as the
ones sleeping on the floor, this might sound unreasonable but it’s the actual
case. It’s like if our brain converts whatever pain we’re going through into a
normal status; it adapts and regulate itself to the current situation using some
sort of a self-defense mechanism. A mechanism that prevents us from losing our
shit and commit suicide right after the occurrence of a misfortune in our life.
On the other side however, being constantly fine with
a margin of 3 points to a potential improvement, makes us persistently chasing
after an imaginary permanent 10. You speculate that if you get married to that
person you’ll live happily forever after, but no; it’s going to be a long
lasting ‘7’ instead. Or if you get that promotion and buy that beautiful
house or this extravagant car, your life would turn into a paradise, but
unfortunately, it’s a big no again. Welcome to Sevenland! We will never be
fully and steadily happy, at least not in this life, no matter the magnitude of
our achievements or the immensity of our wealth, a nasty seven will haunt us
for the rest of our existence. In this case, the mechanism would be acting
to prevent us from becoming insanely and idiotically happy.
In fact, our brain will always shift to equilibrium
‘7’, simply because our perceptions and expectations are in a constant
fluctuation; things can be good but we will perceive them as normal to expect
something better. Similarly; things might be bad yet our mind will readjust and
expect worse. Therefore, there is no tangible and absolute happiness neither is
there an ultimate sorrowful agony, but merely the one’s perception of his reality instead.
Our expectations and perceptions are the two variations
we need to work on in order to live a healthy and balanced life. Is ‘7’ your
half empty or half full glass? Actually, what seems to be the pure reality is
utterly relative to your perspective. Moreover, your 7 will be your 10 if you
are not expecting constantly to reach a higher level of happiness; it’s a
tricky game, the greater your expectations are, the lower you’ll find yourself
on the scale of happiness. To the contrary, the more grateful you are about
your current situation, the higher you rise on the scale. Chasing after happiness
itself will never be fruitful, whereas setting a tangible goal and working
towards it, not in hope to feel happy only after reaching it, but to enjoy the
process, embrace the difficulties and know that you are content regardless, is the key to a satisfying
life.
At the end of the day, whether we are enduring or
delightfully flying, those extremities won’t last for long, and it’s actually a
blessing. Knowing that you can’t stay in the highs neither can you drown in the
abyss, makes you conscious of your full control over your present moment. Sure
your life will fluctuate every once in a while, but what you make out of your 7
will last the longest.
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