The Happiness Scale: How We Perceive Joy & Appreciate Others

One of my favorite books is "Stumbling On Happiness" by Dan Gilbert. In it, Gilbert explores the nature of happiness and explains the numerous psychological illusions that tend to distort our perception of joy. He examines questions that we all ask, such as: Why am I not happier? Does money make me happy? How much money will make me happy? How can I be happier?

Dr. Gilbert uses many experiments and studies to focus on three important points:

    1) When we imagine our state of mind, which includes happiness and sadness; basically, the way we feel based on hypothetical events, important details are sometimes added in or are missing without us even realizing that they are.  Many times, it is those very details that can make us happy.

    2) When we imagine the future or think about past events, it is far less imaginative than we think.  The mental picture that we conjure is usually a lot like what is happening in our present and our "imagined" feelings will be strongly influenced by the current state of mind.

    3) When events actually happen, we view them far differently than before they had happened. Our psychological "immune system" will distort our perception of major psychological events to help shield us from undesirable effects, like pain or depression.

Dr. Gilbert explains that in his lab, they constantly find that people have an inability to predict what will make them happy, or unhappy for that matter. The truth is, bad things don’t affect us as profoundly as we expect them to (also true for the affect of good things) and that we adapt to either very quickly.

People tend to be moderately happy with whatever cards they are dealt. Usually, on a scale of 1-100, most people will report their happiness as a 75, while striving to get to 100.  Sometimes it feels like you might get there (to 100), but don't ever stay at that pinnacle for long.  People fear those things that they believe will take them down to a 20 on the scale (death of a loved one, end of a relationship, health problems, etc.) and even when those happen, humans seem to return back to their emotional baselines much faster than one might expect. "Humans are wildly resilient," he says.

I have found that I tend to feel the happiest when those closest to me seem satisfied and content. Perhaps it is the relationships in my life that reflect how I gauge my own success, which in turn, effect  the perception of my happiness.  This reminded me that I need to take moments to reflect, appreciate, and express my gratitude to those around me who I am grateful for. Sometimes hearing that you are meaningful in the life of another can do wonders on spiking the numbers on the "perception of happiness scale."  So tell or show someone that you love how much you appreciate them today!  I know that I will.