Doing activities that bring us satisfaction and motivation can increase our happiness. But before analysing the ingredients of happiness, we need to answer an important question: what is happiness?
This dimension depends largely on what we do and think. You can't be happy if you don't enjoy what you give or if you always think negatively. Let's see below why satisfaction and motivation are the ingredients of happiness.
What is happiness?
When we are happy, life seems to smile on us. But what exactly is happiness? It is important to answer this question because the different ways of describing this state help us to understand what we need to do to feel happier.
According to one expert, happiness is the sum of feelings of pleasure and motivation experienced over time. When we are happy, everything goes well. According to one philosopher, pleasure is the only positive feeling, as opposed to pain, which is the only negative feeling. However, some specialists prefer the terms joy and suffering.
Generally speaking, each of us can be classified according to our predisposition to different types of feelings. Happy people are more likely to experience positive than negative feelings. To use Bentham's language, these people experience much pleasure and little pain.
The more frequent and intense this feeling of pleasure is, the happier the person is. However, other emotions are equally important: motivation and meaninglessness.
The ingredients of happiness according to the principle of pleasure and motivation
Pleasure and motivation should be understood as shorthand for a much wider range of positive and negative feelings. Among these feelings we certainly find fulfilment, a sense of purpose and satisfaction on the one hand, and boredom and a sense of uselessness on the other.
If we think about work or study, we notice that sometimes these activities seem to have a meaning or at least a purpose and other times not. Well, these positive and negative feelings are just as important as those of pleasure and pain.
Writing a book is a perfect example of an activity that seems to have a meaning, a purpose. Drinking a beer with friends, on the other hand, simply gives us a feeling of pleasure. These are two different sensations, both of which are capable of giving us happiness.
To be truly happy, we need both pleasure and a goal to strive for. There are different ways to be happy (or unhappy), in some cases pleasure predominates, in others motivation. The important thing is that both are present: pleasure and motivation.
Negative emotions can have a positive impact
The above principle explains the human tendency to seek fulfilment and purpose to avoid pain and meaninglessness. But it also explains why some inherently negative emotions can become positive when they have a purpose. Anger, for example, has the function of curbing selfishness and encouraging cooperative behaviour.
So we do not always want to feel only positive feelings. Life, but also people, can be cruel, so sometimes we feel the need to get angry. But in reality, we also get angry for no reason, in a natural way. This happens, for example, when we are stressed by many small, constant disturbances.
Lost happiness cannot be regained
Day after day, moment after moment, we sometimes feel fulfilled, motivated, distressed, empty. It is clear that the times when we experience a greater amount of positive feelings that last for a long time are the times when we feel happiest. In short, happiness depends on the proportion between pleasure and motivation over time. And time, as we know, is not infinite. In fact, it is really curious that only a few researchers think that happiness depends on how we use our time.
If we are looking at the long term, the best thing to do is to try to use our time in such a way as to achieve a sense of general well-being and motivation that lasts as long as possible. As it is impossible to make up for lost time, it goes without saying that lost happiness cannot be regained either.
Continuing to do a boring job or pursuing a relationship that no longer has anything to offer us only prolongs our discomfort and it is unlikely that any future happiness can fully compensate for that which we have lost. Happiness that we do not enjoy is lost forever.
The main reason we are not as happy as we could be is that we pay too much attention to the wrong things. It is not difficult to understand why we are unhappy when you consider that we often let our instincts guide us in determining the things that could motivate us and make us happy.
We now know that if we want to be happier, we should try to spend more time on activities that fulfil and motivate us. And above all, we must not forget that we must favour activities that last over time. Only in this way can we maximise our happiness.