Happiness does not come from fulfilling desires. Once we truly understand this, we have taken our first step towards being happy.
Studies show that people report higher levels of happiness when they feel they are well off. Here is one. The people reporting themselves as being happy tend to under-estimate the happiness of others around them. Apparently, that is what makes them happy. This conclusion is not inconsistent with another study that finds that a person is likely to be happier when s/he is top dog rather than earning top dollar. In summary, the more we see ourselves as doing better than others (economically or socially), the higher we report our level of happiness. If someone disagrees and asserts that he is happy regardless of these factors, his views will probably carry more weight if his income, wealth, and social status are all in the bottom half.
These drivers of happiness do appear a bit perverse. By this logic I am happy today if I am doing better than most others. Tomorrow, if I am not doing better than others, I will become unhappy even if everything in my life including my relationships, income, wealth, and standard of living remain the same.
This logic would also suggest that happiness is unstable. When we search for happiness, we practically are looking around to confirm that others are not doing great – because doing better than others makes us happy. Relatively and economically speaking, the worse others do, the happier we would get.
Some readers may see things differently. But, in one form or another, happiness is conditional for almost all of us. We are happy only if certain implicit conditions are met. If the conditions do not relate to how well others are doing financially, it relates to some other demands in our life that must be met. Rarely do we have a person as unconditionally happy as one sometimes get in good meditation sessions.
Perhaps this is human nature. Perhaps, this is how animal brains are wired – to strive to do better than others or be restless and unhappy if we don’t get things our way. Perhaps this thinking brings evolutionary advantages to a species or survival advantages to an animal. Nonetheless, this appears to be a dark way be happy. If this is how I am subconsciously thinking, I would like to consciously try and get rid of this mindset. And this is more than personal. It is also a question of what kind of world we will live in. If happiness is determined by relative status, at least half of humanity is cursed to be unhappy because at least half of us would be in the economic or social bottom half. And if happiness is almost always conditional, almost all of humanity would struggle to be happy.
Given the prevalence of mental health diseases today, we need to actively try and find ways to make an overwhelming majority of humanity happy. We have a problem if the primary way we know to be happy is to be on top of the pile or if we keep setting conditions for ourselves to be happy.
A contrarian view
One may also argue the opposite of above: that disliking reality does not change it. Little will be achieved by criticising the world or wringing hands about basic human nature. And then, changing the world is hard enough. Changing it a person at a time must be doubly impossible. Surely, little can then be expected to come out of trying to change peoples’ thought patterns en masse.
This contrarian view is compelling. But it argues in favor of a paranoid, insecure happiness that would not be stable at a personal level. Being spiritual is not about looking around hoping for others’ misery. Neither is it about feeling miserable about things we want but don’t need. So, I would not want this form of happiness for myself. Especially now that I know about this dynamic of happiness, I would want my happiness to be more resilient. And, personally, one must be the change that he would like to see in the world. If I would like to change this world, the place to start would be with myself. And having made progress in this direction, it would be important for me to share my experience as well. This is what I am doing in the rest of this article.
How can one make this change?
One clue is in the problem itself. By above logic, happiness is a question of perception. For example, if I perceive my reality to be socially or economically dominant, I would be happy. So, if I can change my perception of what my happiness is conditional upon, I could potentially change my level of happiness. So, it comes down to changing my thinking.
Changing one’s thinking is not easy. Nonetheless, research shows that one can potentially do this – for example, through meditation. Preliminary studies show that meditation (specifically clearing the mind) can have strong psychosomatic benefits. This last finding is surprisingly similar to the stated objective of yoga – stilling the mind. These studies and results are by no means conclusive, in part because there are so many variations in the techniques of meditation. So, it becomes difficult for a study that includes all and sundry meditation styles to separate the wheat from the chaff. But they do suggest a promising line of thought in a direction that apparently lies beyond the grasp of today’s science. We have indications of the direction we should be traveling but not yet turn-by-turn instructions that have been validated by science. And this is why one must explore this area using a cautious, evidence-based approach, and adopt what works for oneself and discard what does not (see an earlier article on a suggested approach here). For those interested in using meditation to try and bring positive changes to their minds, the meditation section of this website may provide some useful pointers.
A new way to be happy
Step 1: Recognise what happiness is not.
It is not fulfillment of desires. Rephrased, fulfilling desires is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to be happy.* After the basic needs of life have been met, making happiness conditional upon fulfillment of additional desires is a serious, inadvertent mistake that can be consciously reversed. Each desire opens a new door for grief to walk in. As we may have experienced, when a desire is unfulfilled, that one unmet want can become our whole existence. On the other hand, fulfilment of desires leads to their multiplication and sets a person up for unhappiness as well. Satisfy one desire and many more will spring up. So, the “privileged” would likely have many more desires that need to be fulfilled before they can experience a semblance of momentary satisfaction. And, this moment would not last long since desires rage like an insatiable fire. Acting under desire’s influence to try and satisfy it pours more fuel upon it (see my earlier note on this subject). For example, a desire can start with me wanting to own a new car. Once I own the car, my wants related to the car suddenly multiply: Everyday, I want it to look not just good but better than others’ cars. I want it to run well. I want it to give me good milage and continue to do so. I want fuel prices to remain low so that I can drive my car cheaply. I want it to not get dents or blemishes. I want it to remain the latest model and the subsequent models to not outdo it in terms of features. I want people to admire and praise it. I want great parking spots everywhere I go. I want free parking. I want, I want, I want….. on and on it goes. One desire became many more after being fulfilled – each new desire having the power to inflict misery by itself. This is the usual story of desires.**
First I just desired a car. Once I got the one I wanted, I wanted it to be better looking than other cars, pay low fuel prices, low cost maintence, get admiration for owning it, having it forever as the latest and greatest model, good parking everywhere, and so on. One fulfilled desire multiplied into many new ones.
In summation, instead of leading us to happiness, desire does the opposite. Our misery is primarily created by desires and attachments – as unfulfilled desires create dejection and anger; while fulfilled desires create many new ones, many of which will go unfulfilled. Recognizing this dynamic and that “fulfillment of desires does not lead to happiness” is thus the first step towards happiness.
Step 2: Recognise the challenge.
The problem is that even if we accept the above argument logically, we will strongly resist it through our established thought patterns and actions. In our daily lives, we will regress to the same old pattern of thinking, where desires dominate. In our decision making, we will repeatedly and without second thought obsess about the things we want. We also continue to chase money for its own sake. This tenacious hold of desires on our thinking and actions borders on slavery. And we do not seem to mind much – acting under the influence of desires does not appear to be all that bad while living that moment. This, in essence, is the crux of the challenge. Slavishly serving desires through actions while not really being conscious of our predicament, nor seeing a compelling reason to resist. However, the misery desires sow comes to us eventually, with a delay. This delay makes the connection between the two difficult to establish. It’s like the pain from desire’s slave whip is felt weeks or even months after it was lashed. And then the resulting hollowness of such a life stares back at us. Usually, we do not rightly identify the culprit as desire – let alone take steps against it. But, these hollow life moments can also be pivotal if we correctly identify the culprit and push ourselves into a spiritual orbit that moves around happiness rather than an a dark orbit that moves around desires. This brings us to step 3.
Step 3: Understand that persistent effort and time can bring a huge transformation
Moving from an orbit around desire to an orbit around spiritual happiness takes conscious work and some time to bear fruit. As mentioned above, regression to the old pattern of thoughts and actions is normal and to be expected. It would naturally be frustrating for people. But changes in thought and actions can and do occur with persistence. This is akin to the story of the race between the hare and turtle. The turtle won through persistent ongoing effort. Reaching happiness needs a similarly consistent, ongoing effort. It is not a sprint; it is a walk. Charting out this challenging path is what this website aims to do.
One way to start could be this article on a specific meditation technique. This technique, once practiced, can be applied outside of meditation time too. It teaches how to keep the mind clear of disturbances and thus in a peaceful state. And this “clearing up” can be done with each breath and sub-consciously (a bit like walking without realising). Describing such a state of mind to someone who has not experienced it is difficult. But everyone must experience it to realise its value. This meditation-breathing technique then becomes an invaluable skill to keep the mind happy (see article).
Footnotes
*The happiness studies referenced earlier are thus pointing to a desire to be relatively better off than others. Interestingly, this is not really fulfilling any specific material desire but one at a relative, aggregate level.
** It may be argued that a partly satisfied desire like owning a car, in this example, is better than not having satisfied it at all. Even if my car doesn’t look great everyday, even with high fuel prices, and with some problematic car maintence, I may still be happier owning a car than not. By this logic, satisfying my car desire made me happier. An important distinction needs to be made here between needs and desires. Problems often arise if the trigger for buying is a need but what is being bought is decided by desire – for example where a basic car would do, a person may buy a luxury one. Worse, where a car is not really needed, a person may convince himself that it is. One should beware of such intertwining of needs and desires that trick us into pandering to what really are desires disguised as needs.
It should also be noted that going from a life where we satisfy many of our desires to one where we satisfy none may not be feasible in a single step. Such an attempt may be extreme and result in the person oscillating between fantasising about his desires and regretting not meeting them. A relatively slower progress in this direction would be better than one that is too fast to be sustainable.
