Happiness at TED Conversations

Una discussione su TED Conversations sulla felicità (qualche estratto):

Nic Marks

Can we become happier? Do others make us happy? Or unhappy for that
matter? Is it in our control? Or are we victims of circumstance?

Is happiness like romantic love – in that if we try too hard and want
it too much it escapes us? Is Dan Gilbert right in that we stumble upon
it – or Srikumar Rao in suggesting it just a revealing process? Or
maybe they both are?

Petra Carrington

Life is a journey and our addiction to
happiness may leave us very disappointed if we fail to recognize and
appreciate the harmony and peace of mind that constitute the glimpse of
perfection until we proceed in our futile search.

Happiness is a frail state of mind and I don’t think anybody can make
us happy, but others/their actions can trigger moments of happiness, as
anything we truly appreciate for whatever reason can. We also don’t
know happiness without appreciating despair. Happiness and sadness are
fleeting, whereas contentment and depression arguably impact us to a
greater degree.

If we are overly content we are at risk to become complacent,
self-righteous, and stagnate, failing to learn and grow. If we are
depressed we become small and weak. Deriving value from both
experiences does not make me necessarily happier, but I like to think
that I am more aware.

Jon Yeo

I believe happiness comes from a DECISION
inside. However, there are many palpable influences each individual to
the experiencer. Surely something so individual must come from inside

Yubal Masalker

The factors you specify in the questions,
below your main question, have various degrees of impact on our
happiness – depending on the very nature of each one of us separately.
But I think, any such factor you named, or others, can bring only
temporary happiness. They cannot bring ever-lasting happiness.

Before I write what I think can truly bring more lasting happiness, I
shall specify one more mistake which many make when searching for
happiness. The mistake is actually the very SEARCH itself. Because true
happiness is not an object to be searched. By embarking for such a
search, one gets finally obsessive for finding it, and this
fundamentally undermines the possibility to become happy. It’s the same
with Love. So many people are in quest after Love, but true Love seems
to evade them. Because, Love like Happiness, are not objects which can
be searched and found and kept in our lockers.

It’s like searching for other feelings like anger, sadness, etc. These
feelings are authentic and pure when they rise due to the “Right”
event. If we consider sadness, it’s truly authentic, suppose, when we
lose somebody of our own close family. But if one of our colleagues at
work loses someone of his own family, we sympathize him and go to visit
him and console him, but we don’t feel as much sad as we feel when we
lose somebody of our own family. Sometimes we even feel a kind of guilt
when we don’t feel sad enough when one of our friends lose someone
close to him. Then we try to create (to search) some more inner sadness
inside us for our friend, but usually it’s a futile attempt. So what
can be seen here is that there’s a need for a truly “Right” thing to
happen to create authentic feelings inside us. The other important
thing to be noticed here is that these feelings do not exist
independently by their own, but they come as side effects to certain
events or things.

It’s the same principle with Happiness. So
the question is what’s the “Right” thing that should occur for having
prolonged & authentic happiness ??

I think the only thing that can bring authentic and ever-lasting
happiness, is approaching as close as possible to truth. Now, many
might say that truth can be subjective, culture-bound, indefinable,
multiple, etc. That’s right. So each one can begin to try approaching
the truth as one sees it. The final test is how happy one begins to
feel and if ones happiness is permanent or temporary. But it’s not
either-or question. Meaning one does not require to absolutely touching
the very truth in order to feel true happiness. The degree of ones
happiness and its quality depend upon the degree of ones closeness to
the truth. Any single & genuine step towards the truth is also one
step higher in the feeling of true happiness. The impact is directly
proportional and immediate.

If this is an accurate analysis, then it’s clear that happiness is also
a side effect of the truth – a very high-class side effect. But this
also explains why the search for happiness as a stand-alone,
independent entity is wrong and can never succeed. What should be
searched is the truth, not happiness. Happiness will emerge
spontaneously as soon as one really comes closer to truth. Happiness is
an inevitable side effect of truth.

Exactly in the same manner also Love should not be searched as a
stand-alone, independent entity. What should be searched is a suitable,
matching partner for each individually, as Love is a side effect of the
interaction with such a matching partner.

James Cullumber

We control how we feel. We are people that
run on “Bio-Energy” an electric form of energy that runs the body. We
as people are able to feel happy whenever we are around certain people
while we generate other kinds of emotions around different kinds of
people.

Sarina Hannon

I think we can steer our thoughts so that we create the circumstances of happiness.
The happiest person I ever knew had absolutely no reason to be. His outlook still fascinates me.
Like you say, if we can create this happiness consciously and authentically… wow.
It sounds kind of silly, but search wikipedia for a subject you hate,
one that bores you to tears. You will find evidence of a group of
people entirely enthralled and passionate. It seems normal, (to each
his own, right?) but its rather incredible when you think that that
drastic difference in emotion is simply due to perspective(a
perspective you can gain!). You may know every fact on that page, but
you are still missing something they understand, right? 🙂
I like to imagine a way to translate that appreciation. That is the
next revolution in social networking 🙂 Across time, across language:
translate perspective so people really understand. I think the world
would change socially in a flash. all for the happier and more
respectful 😉

Debra Smith

Research indicates that a least a shot at
happiness emerges from socio economic status. Poverty is the best
predictor of every negative outcome.

Revett Eldred

Happiness, surely, is a spectrum from
micro-happiness (“I am so happy to see you!”) to macro-happiness (“I am
really happy with my life”). Does being happy in the macro sense comes
about as the sum of a lot of micro-happiness experiences, or is it
something qualitatively different? I know that in my life I have always
been generally happy, but I am never happy about everything. Right now
I am happy, but I’m not happy about too much government intrusion in my
life, and I am not happy about what is going on in LIbya, and I am not
happy about the way we are polluting our world, and I am not happy
about the fact that my business has not been doing well for the past
two years, and I am not…. etc etc.

Yaga Bialski

The happiness is not to be pursued. It is
byproduct of fulfillment and fulfillment is byproduct of living
purposeful, meaningful, clear-minded life.
We don’t pursue laughter (although they are laughing clubs), we do not
seek funny, unless you are comedian, but when we look at life with a
joyous heart we suddenly have great sense of humor! And then things are
funny and then we laugh. Not the other way around.
The words to boggle your mind and send you on the path of destruction
(like chase of happiness) are found in religious texts, political
declarations, laws and constitutions.
Stay away from it.
Find what you love, work on it, become good at it, do it every day and
one day you will know your purpose, you will be fulfilled… and voila!
YOU WILL BE HAPPY!!!

Daniel Eagle

I believe happiness is entirely internalized.
We have many different definitions of happiness, yet I find that “true”
happiness – the form which encompasses all definition – is most
independent of religion/politics, social behavior and especially
wealth/class stature. This happiness is a state of mind, a feeling. It
can be explained biologically, yet it’s psychological complexities are
vast. This mind structure can increase around others or in isolation.
It is heavily personal and it can obtained by anyone. Some ancient
Greeks gave pain and sorrow equal emphasis as happiness. Just a thought.

Edit: I’d like to add an excerpt from Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man.” He’s one of my favorite poets:

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see
All discord, harmony not understood,
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

Jordan Miller

In order to achieve many things in life it’s often but not always a good idea to use a principal called the “indirect effect”

If you want people to listen to you about a topic don’t tell people to
listen to you, become an authority on that topic and they’ll listen to
you without your prodding. Sometimes when you try directly to get
something it is very difficult to get it. Try going about the problem
indirectly, that philosophy of action always requires some faith that
it will work.

If you want more happiness don’t buy more toys, instead spend time with
loved ones. if you want more joy don’t think about how you’re going to
get it. think about how you can help others feel more joy.

I know you think about Happiness often, but don’t bother with it
because the “secret” to happiness has been enunciated over and over by
the wise of history. Selfishness will never work. The trick is to get
ourselves and to help others believe that by looking outside ourselves
we stand the greatest chance of being truly happy. And the hard thing
to do is to live by that truth – its hard because to truly be outside
ourselves we cannot be doing it for any external motivation, including
our selfish desire for happiness – it must be a part of who we are, we
must be sincere.

This reminds me of a poem I heard years ago. I don’t know who write it though.

I tried to find myself
myself I couldn’t see.
I tried to find my god
but he eluded me.
I tried to find my brother
and then I found all three.

a good book which touches on these topics (but not on the pursuit of
happiness directly) is “Bonds that make us Free” I think very highly of
it.

Paul Van der Werf

Great question Nic.

Can it be more about less unhappiness and less about more happiness. I
feel happiness is a transitional feeling that changes from moment to
moment throughout the day. For example, I can have happiness driving
home (thinking about spending time with the family), arrive happy and
check the mail and find a bill to pay. At that point I am less happy
than the moment before but no unhappy.

If we were to have less unhappiness, would the moments of happiness
last longer, resulting in “more” happiness? Or is it about the levels
of happiness?

Alexandra Innes

Of course we can become happier! What on Earth would be the point of living if that were not so?

Others “make us” relatively happy. I say “make us” because actually
outside stimuli activate whatever we already have inside us. You
already have it inside you as a potential.

Absolute happiness, on the other hand, is self-created. It’s the simple
clear joy of being alive. We sometimes call it happy for no reason.

We’re victims of circumstance if we see it that way. But we can move
from victim to victor. A section from my e-book, As You THINK So You
Are, says:

“Circumstances will batter you as long as you believe yourself to be a
victim created by outside conditions. But when you realize that you are
a creator, and you have creative power, you can redirect the
“thought-seeds” of your mind — out of which circumstances grow. “

Finally, happiness is a by-product. It comes from challenging yourself
and growing, from strengthening and deepening your character, from
caring about other people, and from comunity building.

Mrityunjay Awasthy

Happiness, though always desired and almost
by anyone who can think about it (to whatever extent) is property of
mind and it is relative. I will rather say it is report card of
performance of a species, while being the question paper too, and for a
mind, so contended and bread upon knowledge of not only stuff that
affects it but also itself, happiness is final resolution through which
the whole species shall benefit. Is not romanticism an essential
property of human life? Beside how it works, has not us benefited from
it? Selective pairing, learning of virtues and abstractions through art
love and wars, sensing beyond knowledge we have attained, understanding
how love works, how religion works etc.

Yes, happiness does imply “others”. Nothing can proceed and prosper in
isolation. People make people everything they can be. People reflect on
people, somewhat like Hegel’s hypothesis and anti-hypothesis. It is
through exchange, we know about belonging, what is us and what is
other. Reflecting on us (for our mind to know and understand) is
primary advantage of interaction at all levels. Society, for an
individual is WYSIWYG, the most unfit shall challenge and change or
parish. This way, society is next level of organism human have
attained, just like human with its mind is next level of life all
organs involved have attained.

Luca De Biase

Can one be happy if other people are not
happy? I don’t think so, at least if one is connected to those other
unhappy people. If one cannot really be the only happy person in the
place, that means that happiness is a social feeling. It is not a state
of the individual: it is a state of the social network. If what I’ve
just written were right, then it wouldn’t make much sense to ask
whether it can be under one’s control. What makes a lot of sense is
asking what can I do to help other people that are not happy, in order
to feel free to search for my own happiness. It makes sense to
contribute to the happiness of my social network, in order erase a
cause of my own impossibility to be happy.