Make well-being a goal

If we are to become happier, it's not enough to simply know that it is possible. We could even learn all the ways in which we could become happier. The fact is, increasing our sense of well-being takes a concerted effort over a long time. So, we need to have some serious motivation toward the goal of increasing our well-being. We need what I have come to call 'the will to thrive.' So, this post will be about what gives people that will to put in the hard work.

The idea of 'getting happier' won't motivate you, and it certainly won't make you happier. Why? Because well-being is not about being fortunate enough to get happier, but instead about learning to be happier. Trying to get happier - as if happiness is something external that we somehow acquire - just doesn't work. Nor does getting your circumstances just the way you want them. Life doesn't work that way, and neither does happiness.

Fortunately, research has also shown that our sense of well-being can be increased and sustained. Well-being is more like a skill, that can be developed over time. It is the skill of 'being' well - being in this present moment in a positive, constructive, and effective manner. People who cultivate the skills of 'being well' do quite predictably increase their levels of happiness. But it takes hard work. So, here are some reasons why it's worth cultivated the skills of how to 'be' well:

1. It's good to feel good. Enough said. In fact, many thinkers have suggested that having a sense of well-being is the goal from which all other human goals originate.
   
2. Positive emotions have a profound effect on us. They broaden our mind and help us to build our resources for the future. There are countless flow-on effects. Let me list some of them. In general, happier people are more intelligent, creative, and focused. They are better at solving problems, achieving goals, and coping with stress. They tend to be more successful by almost any measure. They have stronger, deeper, and more fulfilling friendships and relationships. They have a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life, and find their lives more fulfilling. Physically, their immune systems are stronger, their physical injuries heal faster, the age better and they even live longer. They are a less risk of all manner of diseases, from Alzheimer's to heart disease. Studies have shown that positive emotions actually cause all these positive effects, they are not merely consequences. In almost every domain of life, a sense of well-being itself has a hugely positive effect.
   
3. People with a greater sense of well-being influence in the world in more positive ways, and can often be of greater benefit to others. There are several reasons. The broaden and build effect of positive emotions spills over to benefit other people too. Happier people are kinder and more altruistic than unhappy people. They are more effective at doing things that benefit others. Not only that, a sense of well-being has a direct positive influence on those around you as well, since happiness is contagious. The people who spend time with you benefit from your happiness too. Making your own well-being one of your important goals is far from selfish, since it is an important resource through which we can benefit others.
4. Life is difficult, bad things happen, and you have to cope with it. It is healthy to feel negative emotions. But some people become crippled by them. Others a resilient, and able to 'bounce back' from even the greatest tragedies. It just so happens that the same skills that cultivate our sense of well-being also build our resilience against adversity. When adversity strikes, you'll deal with it much better if you've already developed those skills.
5. There seems to be no other way to get a deep sense of well-being. Happiness doesn't happen by accident. There are people who have everything they could want and yet are miserable. Conversely, there are people who have nothing (materially) and yet have a strong sense of well-being. How can this be? The reason is that the world we really experience is not the world we see physically, it is the world of our mind. So if our mental world is in disarray, nothing we change about the outside world will lead to happiness. The only way to have a sense of well-being is to get our mental worlds in order.
   

So, it really is worth making well-being a goal, and being willing to put in some serious effort to increase it. Fostering a heart-felt will to thrive is the most critical foundation. It provides the necessary motivation to learn the skills that take us toward that goal. Without the will to thrive, those same skills of well-being seem ineffective and trite. It is the not the desire to simply change our circumstances, it is the will to engage with them in a more positive, constructive, and effective way.

Why do many people languish in life?

As a starting point in this blog, I think it's important to give a little background on why some people languish in life. Languishing is on the negative end of the spectrum of subjective well-being. I say subjective well-being, not simply happiness, since well-being is much broader than the simple positive emotion that people call happiness. Well-being includes things like our emotions, our engagement with life, our connection with others, our evaluation of ourselves and our lives, and our sense of purpose and meaning. On the positive end of the spectrum is thriving. Unfortunately, most people don't thrive. Many people are 'OK', some 'get by', and far too many languish under the day to day adversities of life. Why?

Recent research is giving us part of the answer. It is showing that most people are very poor at predicting what will increase their sense of well-being. Western culture serves as a very poor guide. It suggests that greater well-being is to be found in greater wealth and more impressive achievements. It enculturates us to believe that possession, entertainment, luxury, and social status are the keys to well-being. It fosters the idea that we will be lastingly happier by getting what we want, by getting things like:

• A relationship
• A more attentive spouse
• Looking younger
• Losing weight
• More money
• More time
• Cure from a chronic illness or disability
• A better house
• An award or recognition

Would we not be happier to get the things we want? Yes - but only for a short time, and not nearly to the extent that we expect. The reason for this is that we humans, by nature, adapt very quickly to our circumstances. We are wired to notice novelty, but adapt to things that do not change. So when we get something we want, we initially feel overjoyed. Yet after a few months, weeks, days or even hours, we adapt to it. Our feelings of well-being return to their base level. The converse is also true, that when bad things happen to us we often do not feel as bad as we had expected to, because in a short time we adapt. In fact, research is now showing that our circumstances influence how we feel by only about 10%. People struggle to improve their sense of well-being because they pour their energy into endeavors that have only a small influence on it. The flip side is that at the same time, they fail to devote their energy into more effective pursuits.

As a society, we have lost much of the wisdom shared by those centuries ago. The consequences are stunning: despite a quality of circumstances far better than most of the world has even known before, we live in an age of depression. The rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23% p.a., and the average age at which depression strikes is now only 14 years old! Not university students, nor high-schoolers, but pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. In most developed countries, 15% of the population of most developed countries suffers severe depression at some stage in their life. Depression is about to become the 2nd most common health problem in the world. It is nothing short of a disaster, and not only on a personal level. People's friends and family are affected also. Depression also comes at a cost of billions and billions of dollars to the economy. We live amid the great deception, in a society that presents a facade of happiness when many people are languishing in life.

So what, then, does improve our sense of well-being? It is my purpose with this blog to share with you the newfound and rediscovered wisdom that answers that question.