The Trouble with Happiness: Understanding the Difference between Joy and Pleasure

Americans will spend $750 million on self-help books this year and more than $1 billion on motivational speakers. More than 100 colleges now offer classes in positive psychology -- the science of happiness.

This quote from a CNN report earlier this week, adds to the growing body of evidence that Americans are taking the pursuit of "Life, Liberty and Happiness" to unprecedented extremes. But is our tenacious quest to claim our inalienable rights paying off?

According to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, not so much

But you probably already know this. Despite our many freedoms, impressive purchasing power and a mind-boggling array of consumer choices (22 blender choices at Target alone), very few of us have been able to grasp happiness in any lasting way. Quite the contrary, in fact, as evidenced by our mounting credit card debt and sky-rocketing use of pharmaceuticals to combat depression, anxiety, insomnia, and a whole host of stress-related health conditions including ulcers, IBS, and high blood pressure.

Could it be that the Declaration of Independence was written on Opposite Day?

Quite possibly. But Gilbert and others suggest there may be other factors at work. For one, we just aren't very good judges of what will make us happy and our skewed perspectives set us up for disappointment as a result. To illustrate, let's consider this excerpt from Happy in Spite of Ourselves by Wray Herbert which presents a salary choice scenario posed to research subjects:

"One [job] pays $30,000 the first year, $40,000 the second, and $50,000 the third. Not bad. The other offers $60,000 at first, but then only $50,000, and finally $40,000."

Which of these two jobs you would choose?

According to Wray, most people choose the first job, even though in the long run they will make less money. Why? It's a matter of perception and relative psychological comfort.  Job number one offers nice pay increases every year compared to the downward slide of the second job.  The actual numbers aren't what grab our attention. It's the downward trend that is significant and no one wants to agree to a pay cut. In order to avoid the pain of taking a pay cut, most people opt choose the first job even though it would result in the actual loss of $30,000.

Let's say you override your gut, become a math whiz and avoid this trap. Problem solved, right?

Not so fast, Bucko. Just because you would end up with more money doesn't mean that happiness will follow. The problem of focus is more subtle than that. In "Would You Be Happier If You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion" by Daniel Kahneman, Alan B. Krueger, David Schkade, Norbert Schwarz, and Arthur A. Stone suggest that we may not know what makes us happy, as much as we'd like to think we do and what we focus on at any given time may lead us to make some spotty conclusions about ourselves. For example, if you are single and I ask you if you are dating, and you say no and then I ask you how happy with your life, I may have tipped you away from saying you are happy. And if you aren't happy, I'll give you three guesses what you are most likely to name as the reason. What you are focused on (dating in this case) gets linked with everything else I may ask you simply because I made it relevant.

When you think of how much marketing you are subjected to everyday, is it any wonder that you may be tempted to think, "If I just had that...if I could just afford that...THEN!..."

According to the article, the belief that high income is associated with happiness is intuitively appealing, but ultimately illusory. People with above-average income, are not, on the whole any happier moment-to-moment than those with fewer financial resources. In fact, evidence suggests the opposite, that they are prone to higher levels of stress and tension and may be spending less time engaged in enjoyable activities. While we all like to think that more money will lead to higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction, the evidence does not seem to bear this out. 

I'd like to add here that this is where things get tricky.  The theory of cognitive dissonance (if I'm doing this it must be worth it) demands that we justify our behavior to ourselves. If I am going to be working like a nut to acquire wealth I have to believe my sacrifices are worth it.  Who could bear the thought of an insanely driven work style with no payoff at the end?  In order to survive the pressures, many people exaggerate the contribution of income to happiness because to admit that the whole approach is failing raises questions to difficult for many to face, especially when one's family has gotten accustomed to a certain material lifestyle.

They conclude, “Despite the weak relation between income and global life satisfaction or experienced happiness, many people are highly motivated to increase their income. In some cases, this focusing illusion may lead to a misallocation of time, from accepting lengthy commutes (which are among the worst moments of the day) to sacrificing time spent socializing (which are among the best moments of the day).

An emphasis on the role of attention helps to explain both why many people seek high income--because their predictions exaggerate the increase in happiness due to the focusing illusion--and why the long-term effect of income gains become relatively small, because attention eventually shifts to less novel aspects of daily life.”

And, I have to say, I've heard money can't buy you love either...

So, we just have to focus on the right things, right?

Wrong again, Sparky. You can try all you like but the problem is you won't be able to sustain it. Physiologically it is impossible because of the way we adapt to our circumstances, whatever those circumstances happen to be. Also known as "habituation", we simply get used to our circumstances so that what gives us pleasure today becomes ordinary and loses its luster tomorrow. This is the same premise behind double scent plug in air fresheners. Just when your nose gets used to one scent and stops noticing it, a second scent takes its place, grabbing our renewed attention.

Now that I've thoroughly depressed you, let me give you some hope.

A whole host of people have been solving this problem all through the ages and if you sincerely are motivated to crack the nut for yourself, it is possible. It's not easy, because you are targeted continually by marketing geniuses and, let's face it, the economy is fueled by keeping you a little bit unhappy, but it is possible.

The Little Prince knew it. The Grinch figured it out. Tiny Tim knew how to roll. And many a human being, often coming from an Eastern spiritual tradition, but not exclusively, has been talking about this for eons. When considering happiness, you have to understand the difference between pleasure and joy. Essentially, pleasure is satisfaction of the senses. As we already discussed, sense are fickle and they don't stay satisfied by any one thing for very long. They can't, they won't, they never will. An endless quest to change this fact of our physiology is a fool's errand.

In his discussion on the subject in Freedom from the Known, Krishnamurti states:

"To understand pleasure is not to deny it. We are not condemning it or saying it is right or wrong, but if we pursue it, let us do so with our eyes open, knowing that a mind that is all the time seeking pleasure must inevitably find its shadow, pain. They cannot be separated, although we run after pleasure and try to avoid pain."

The problem of pleasure is that we try to capture it. We want to possess it and know that it will be there for us, in the same way, day after day.

Krishnamurti contrasts this with joy: "...if you can look at [a desired object or a pleasurable experience] without wanting the experience to be repeated, then there will be no pain, no fear, and therefore tremendous joy. It is the struggle to repeat and perpetuate pleasure which turns it into pain."

"It seems to me so simple and because it is so simple we refuse to see it's simplicity."

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