Car­o­line Rav­el­lo

Hap­pi­ness is mis­con­strued as a fleet­ing emo­tion de­pen­dent on ex­ter­nal events or cir­cum­stances. There is a grow­ing con­sen­sus, though, in psy­chol­o­gy, phi­los­o­phy, and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment that hap­pi­ness is, at its core, an in­ter­nal de­ci­sion de­pen­dent large­ly on us in­ten­tion­al­ly chang­ing our per­spec­tive, mak­ing choic­es to view chal­lenges as tem­po­rary or sur­mount­able.

While ex­ter­nal fac­tors may pos­i­tive­ly in­flu­ence our emo­tion­al state, the true and last­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of hap­pi­ness comes from how we choose to en­gage with the world and in­ter­pret the events around us. In essence, hap­pi­ness is a men­tal process–”a head job”–shaped by the de­ci­sions we make in re­sponse to life’s chal­lenges.

Dis­cus­sions around hap­pi­ness of­ten em­pha­sise the role of choice and in­ter­nal con­trol over one’s emo­tions and mind­set. The sug­ges­tion is that hap­pi­ness does not sim­ply hap­pen to us, but it is an on­go­ing process, a con­stant act of choos­ing how to re­spond to ex­ter­nal stim­uli or cir­cum­stances and tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the choic­es we make de­spite how dif­fi­cult that may be.

The premise, ac­cord­ing to pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy, is that peo­ple can cul­ti­vate hap­pi­ness through prac­tices such as grat­i­tude, in­ten­tion­al liv­ing, and re­silience. Schol­ars sug­gest that hap­pi­ness is not on­ly about ex­pe­ri­enc­ing pos­i­tive emo­tions but al­so about pur­su­ing mean­ing­ful goals, en­gag­ing in ac­tiv­i­ties that are in­trin­si­cal­ly re­ward­ing, and de­vel­op­ing a sense of pur­pose in life.

By in­ten­tion­al­ly fo­cus­ing on the pos­i­tive as­pects of life, we can train our minds to ap­pre­ci­ate what we have rather than fo­cus­ing on what we lack. Jour­nalling about mo­ments of grat­i­tude is a wide­ly rec­om­mend­ed prac­tice for boost­ing hap­pi­ness. Stud­ies have found that peo­ple who reg­u­lar­ly en­gage in grat­i­tude ex­er­cis­es ex­pe­ri­ence im­proved mood, in­creased life sat­is­fac­tion, and stronger so­cial con­nec­tions.

Like grat­i­tude, the sci­ence of af­fir­ma­tions is of­fered in that col­lage of so­lu­tions avail­able to us to im­prove our peace of mind and hap­pi­ness. Self-af­fir­ma­tions are pos­i­tive and em­pow­er­ing state­ments used ei­ther as mantras or af­firmed silent­ly to af­fect self-val­ue and one’s self-worth.

Af­fir­ma­tion pro­po­nents say that this prac­tice boosts con­fi­dence and self-in­tegri­ty, but main­ly, self-af­firm­ing state­ments re­duce the mind’s neg­a­tive bias, turn­ing harm­ful re­cur­ring neg­a­tive thoughts in­to pos­i­tive self-talk. It al­so dis­places anx­i­eties while im­prov­ing men­tal and brain health and em­pow­er­ing us.

I am con­vinced hap­pi­ness is a head job, as I see my own life change in­cre­men­tal­ly with the small de­ci­sions to make “hap­py” a pop­u­lar genre of emo­tion in my bas­ket of feel­ings and ex­pe­ri­ences. The cu­rat­ing of hap­pi­ness is some­thing I do de­spite what por­tends–I de­cid­ed not to wait un­til I have the “things” that the world us­es to pro­mote hap­pi­ness and opt­ed to be con­tent with what I have–and I do have a lot!

So, of course, hap­pi­ness is in my head­line thoughts to­day, as I of­ten use Feb­ru­ary to cel­e­brate the joy that the fes­tiv­i­ty of Car­ni­val seems to prompt. This sea­son is my best ex­pe­ri­ence of hap­py-look­ing peo­ple en masse in a land trou­bled by many ills but which ranks high on the Glob­al Hap­pi­ness In­dex while be­ing made low by vi­o­lence, crim­i­nal­i­ty, and im­broglios.

I doubt what we wit­ness is hap­pi­ness, on­ly be­cause I view the con­cept as that of a last­ing state. And Car­ni­val is more of a pe­ri­od of “let­ting loose,” pro­vid­ing a tem­po­rary es­cape from every­day pres­sures and anx­i­eties, serv­ing as a vivid ex­am­ple of how ex­ter­nal events can cre­ate en­vi­ron­ments that en­cour­age joy.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, the last­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of hap­pi­ness de­pends on how we each choose to en­gage with life and on our own men­tal and emo­tion­al process­es and re­spons­es to life’s chal­lenges on the con­tin­u­um.

Car­ni­val, our vi­brant cel­e­bra­tions, re­flects a deep psy­cho­log­i­cal need for re­lease, ex­pres­sion, and some­times even a tem­po­rary es­cape from so­ci­etal norms, sig­ni­fy­ing that a large part of the ex­pe­ri­ence is dri­ven by in­ter­nal states.

But at its core, hap­pi­ness is a de­ci­sion of long-term con­se­quence, in­tri­cate­ly tied to our mind­set, thoughts, in­ter­pre­ta­tions of the world, and a fierce per­son­al com­mit­ment to well-be­ing that in­volves ac­tive pur­suit of the in­ner peace and ful­fil­ment we crave. Car­ni­val is not that!

Hap­pi­ness is not sim­ply a re­ac­tion to ex­ter­nal stim­uli or a pas­sive state of mind. A hap­py per­son is the prod­uct of in­ter­nal choice and de­ci­sion-mak­ing root­ed deeply in the idea of mind­set and men­tal state, im­ply­ing that thoughts and per­spec­tive play a sig­nif­i­cant role in how hap­py you feel, rather than re­ly­ing sole­ly on ex­ter­nal cir­cum­stances.

Our thoughts re­al­ly do shape our emo­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence. “It is not what is hap­pen­ing that is mak­ing us hap­py or un­hap­py, it is how we are re­spond­ing to those things that de­ter­mines whether we are hap­py or un­hap­py. It is what our state of mind is like that de­ter­mines our hap­pi­ness or our un­hap­pi­ness.”

So said Amer­i­can Bud­dhist Gen Kel­sang Nye­ma (New Kadampa Tra­di­tion) in a 2014 TEDx talk ti­tled “Hap­pi­ness is all in your mind.”