The 5 Pillars of Happiness
Happiness is paradoxical. A 2011 study showed that people seeking happiness were generally unhappier than others.
Picture happiness as a sort of ghost that apparently is wandering in your neighborhood. From the moment you hear about someone seeing the ghost or a person that talked to that ghost or whatever, you’ll be scared of it; when the only thing scaring you really just is the fact that you heard about it.
So if you’re seeking happiness, it doesn’t mean you’re doomed, because I tried to understand happiness and came up with the 5 pillars of happiness.
The most well-known and unfortunately the most ignored way of reaching happiness is by taking time for yourself and optimizing your health.
Whether that be taking time to improve your sleep (good sleep is essential for overall life satisfaction and increases your IQ as a bonus), eating healthier (Will make you happy about your body, give you more energy throughout the day, etc.), journaling (it helps to have your thoughts on paper to realize the insignificance of your problems), meditating (decreases anxiety, makes you more present in your everyday life, and even makes you nicer), practicing a sport or an art regularly, may that be piano or boxing (time took to do something you love never is wasted), going for walks (helps regulate glucose levels, opens you to the amazing environment of your neighborhood), being around nature (several studies found that a natural environment can have a positive impact on mental health and well-being, including reducing stress and improving mood) or even being bored (develops your creativity, problem-solving and lets the brain recharge.)
A good thing to do is to list the things that bring you real joy, without rushing to write it, take time to collect them; may that be a specific sport or a board game, etc. And please don’t put stupid things like winning or making money. If you want an example, let me give you mine: The things I love:
Food
Bowling
Traveling
Eating raw guinea pig organs
Tropical climate
Kayaking
Reading an impactful book
Tech
Pushing myself in swimming training
Learning new concepts
and slowly start incorporating these things into your life. But again, I’m not telling you to ONLY do the things on your list, because you’ll never grow and see new things.
The next pillar of happiness is the most recognized by scientific research, and It’s Gratitude. You surely heard about gratitude before, but let me explain how it really works: by practicing gratitude, you’ll enhance your positive emotions, and promote optimism because you’ll focus on positive emotions; thanks to these positive emotions, your stress levels will decrease and your body will be stronger thanks to the lower levels of cortisol (cortisol = the stress hormone). It has been found that expressing gratitude can improve mood, increase life satisfaction, reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, improve relationships, and even boost the immune system. Cicero said: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all the others.”
Gratitude can be expressed and practiced in 5 ways:
Keeping a gratitude journal: Write down three to five things you are grateful for daily. This can help you focus on the good things in your life.
Expressing gratitude to others: Take time to thank the people in your life who have been there for you or who have done something kind for you. You can write a thank-you note, send a text message, or simply say “thank you” in person.
Practicing mindfulness: Take a few minutes each day to focus on the present moment and think about the things you are grateful for. You can do this through meditation, deep breathing, or simply taking a quiet walk.
Finding gratitude in difficult situations: Even in difficult times, there is always something to be grateful for. Try to focus on the positive aspects of the situation and find ways to learn and grow from the experience.
Sharing your gratitude with others: You can spread positivity and kindness by sharing your gratitude with others. Consider posting on social media or telling your friends and family what you are grateful for.
There are two other things that go with gratitude. The first one is getting in touch with loved ones, which really is the best way to recenter on what is essential to your life; 1. Spending some good time reinforcing the links between you and your family/friends *animation cordes entre YOU et LOVED ONES*, catching up on news, but most importantly, eating good food.
The second is very simple but ultra effective; being nice to loved ones and strangers; and when I say strangers, I mean literally anyone. May that be a smile, asking if the person needs help, or just greeting them in the street. Just doing that will 1. Give you a heartwarming feeling, because the person will be nice in return 2. Give you a feeling of belonging; a feeling that you need to be where you are right now, that you have a purpose, which also is a specific point that I’ll cover later. You can also smile to yourself, just stay smiling for 30 seconds and it has been proven that you’ll automatically feel happier.
There’s this study I love called “Novelty Spurs the Brain”; spurring the brain has two meanings: it makes the brain smarter and it makes it happier.
The part of your brain that is linked to novelty exerts a major influence on learning because it is linked to both the hippocampus, which is the brain’s learning center, and the amygdala, the center for processing emotional information.
Novelty brings happiness in three ways. 1. It brings curiosity which makes you more invested in your surroundings. 2. It breaks the monotony of life and 3. It creates great memories.
There’s a study that was conducted on mice that showed when a mouse has the choice to either go in a small maze or to go in a long maze, the mouse would directly choose the longer one, even with no reward at the end; the walk and the different obstacles in the maze were the rewards. That’s why music, food, or a nice car make you happy. That’s why you have those people surround themselves with beautiful things. It has been found that when you find your surroundings appealing, your well-being, behavior, cognitive function, and mood improve.
Travel has a major part in this “novelty circle”. It’s extremely important to stay free when it comes to where you live and travel; because some places are nicer than others, and it is proven that people living in places they find beautiful increases their happiness. Being able to stay in a place you like, or being able to travel to all the amazing places the world has to offer are things that you should seek all your life. That’s one of the reasons why parents try bringing their children to countries that will mark their brains and memories.
Okay, so now you know how to become happy; but how do you stay happy? That is the part where most people; you simply need to admit to yourself that you’re sad when you are. Your happiness is a curve like that:
When you’re at the top, you unfortunately only can go down, and when you’re down, you can only go up. When inside, sadness has taken over, admit it. Tell your brain that you’re sad, go in your room, and cry into your pillow; If you don’t admit it, your brain will think you’re on the upper part of the curve and it won’t react if you go down more; when actually, you’re just sinking even more. Of course, don’t think you’re sad all the time; the curve is more like that:
so don’t fall into this sadness trap. (If you want to know about a video that cheers me up when I’m sad, click here.)
Finally, we have the “fulfillment” pillar, the one without which nothing would work. Living a happy life isn’t about all of these happy moments. There needs to be something holding them together. Imagine two cliffs separated by a canyon. An old bridge stands between the two cliffs. Now imagine that all ropes disappear. What happens to the planks? They fall. Now imagine the bridge but without the planks… You can’t use the bridge anymore. Your purpose is what ties those planks together. You should wake up every morning, know why you’re waking up, and how the things you’ll achieve that day are going to push you forward in your personal and professional life. If all your life you do something that you don’t want to do or follow a dream that isn’t actually yours, you will NOT feel fulfilled. Change that one step at a time if it’s the case for you. Achieve things, surpass yourself, learn new valuable skills, follow your hobbies, create, and use your imagination. Happiness and fulfillment work together.
There are a lot of other things you can do to bring happiness to your life that I didn’t talk about; getting into fitness, improving your social skills, practicing humility, using catharsis -which means relativizing on your problems using books, movies, etc., being yourself, indulging in stoicism, etc.
Strong downvoted. Some constructive feedback:
It’d be helpful to link to such sources.
This metaphor seems off. I think if you hear about people being happy (“seeing the ghost”), most people would respond with interest and intrigue (and perhaps jealousy) rather than fear.
I’m confused about how this follows from the previous ghost metaphor. Wasn’t the metaphor trying to say that people are fearful of it as opposed to that they seek it?
It’d be helpful to know approximately what sort of epistemic effort went into this and how confident you are as a result.
“Pillars” seems to me like it implies a high degree of confidence and finality. Such confidence and finality seems very unjustified to me.
I also think the post would benefit from utilizing headings. Probably one for each pillar. Plus an intro and conclusion, perhaps.
This was a little confusing because I was expecting “is by” to be followed by one thing instead of two.
It’s also not clear whether you are saying this because you think it or because you got it from some sort of reputable source.
This section was difficult to read. It’d probably be better to use bullet points.
References to sources are also lacking.
At first I was thinking the first pillar is about health, but now it seems that it also includes fun. I think this should be made more clear.
It’s also confusing because it seems like, both here and in general, this post mixes things that you think are good ideas with things that reputable sources claim are good ideas based on high quality research.
I don’t think either of those are necessarily stupid. I do think they are dangerous and commonly “misused” though.
This is an example that sticks out and, I assume, is off-putting enough to a large majority of readers, that I think it’d be better to not include it, and if you are going to include it, to perhaps add a footnote explaining why you think it is worth including.
There’s no need to Title Case this.
This doesn’t seem like a good description of how gratitude works.
This sounds to me like it implies that these are the only five ways.
A numbered list would probably be more appropriate than underlining each of the ways as a follow up.
(I’ll stop here.)
Thank you very much, dear master.
I couldn’t imagine a such detailed description of every flaw my piece of writing has. I have two questions to ask you:
First: How do you take the time to comment to someone who just started on LessWrong, how do you manage to write nearly 800 words to give feedback to someone you don’t know and to someone to tell him you didn’t appreciate his work? I am sincerely and honestly in awe in front of what you are doing.
Second: I don’t know when I’ll publish my next post, (it’ll be a bit shorter I think), but when I’ll publish it, can you please be here to comment and give me things I can work on? Thank you very much; I really want to become better at this special art.
Thank you, master.
Hope you have an amazing day.
You’re very welcome.
(Note: Being referred to as “master” makes me feel uncomfortable and I’d expect it to make most people feel similarly uncomfortable.)
You seem well intentioned and eager to learn, so I wanted to help. It also ended up only taking 10-20 minutes or so, so not too bad.
I don’t think your writing is ready for LessWrong. Instead, I’d recommend an online community like Scribophile that is more targeted at beginner-level writers.
This doesn’t seem paradoxical to me? Ones who are more happy than others are less likely to pursue additional happiness.
👀