A work in progress…2007
'At the beating heart of well-being'
is a life in progress
When we're pondering what would make us and our loved-ones happier, here's something to bear in mind:
Aiming to be happier is not what Nature intended as our priority in life. It's not what we're innately driven to make our central mission.
Yet, for a long time now, 'how to increase your happiness' is a promise that's been packaged and sold as a consumer product much like ice-cream or alcohol. If orange is the new black, then happy is the new rich, the new beautiful, the new 'sadness-free diet' promising a swift end to all our ills.
'I just want to be happy!' is the western world's dominant mantra, and we claim that being happy is more important than wealth or beauty or recognition, and think ourselves rather enlightened and Ancient Greek and guru-like for putting happiness firmly at the centre of life's bigger picture. In fact, to all intents and purposes we've deified happiness…whether our own or someone else's whom we care for deeply. We've deified happiness by deeming it the most precious feeling to strive for, and by claiming the question "What would make me happier?" as our guiding light.
Governments have picked up on this new trend, and are now officially 'measuring our happiness' using questionnaires… presumably so they can calculate how much they can tax us before we go mad with sadness or anger and destroy the state. Likewise, leading academics are falling over themselves to bring out popular paperbacks with 'happiness' in the title. Their 21st century message seems to be: forget 'emotional intelligence', that's so 90s. Let's just focus on happiness, and skip the rest.
Well, as the former 'Dr Feel-Good' who penned one hundred and four weekly columns on The Science of Happiness for The Times Magazine, I personally think we're profoundly mistaken in prioritising happiness and pleasure.
In my new role as 'Dr Feel-Fired', with no more columns to write, I've had a lot of time to ponder the 'bigger picture' of what life is really about, and what's worth living for. And as you'll see below, the upshot is that I realize how prioritising happiness & pleasure is a strategy that has seriously damaging consequences, not least because it flies in the face of a far more fundamental drive.
Okay, you say, if 'greater happiness' is not our priority in life, then what on earth is?
Well, it soon becomes clear…