The How of Happiness
Apr. 10th, 2010 07:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonThree of you asked for my thoughts on The How of Happiness. This is a straightforward book by an actual psychology researcher. Its premise is that happiness comes about 50% from your genetic set point, 10% from your life circumstances and 40% from your behavior and conscious thought patterns. Then it encourages you to take that 40% and make it happen. (If 40% sounds depressingly low to you, why? If it's the difference between 20% happy and 60% happy, that's dramatically life-changing.)
The author also carefully makes the case that being happier is not just for feeling good, but is worth pursuing for wider reasons: being happier boosts your immune system, your energy levels, and your engagement with work and other people. One person being happier is a benefit to that person's "partners, families, communities and even society at large".
The most valuable 2.5 pages of this book comprise the "Person-Activity Fit Diagnostic", a little test that's meant to tell you which of the 12 happiness strategies in the book will likely be a good fit for you. (The test's a bit wonky since you wind up subtracting an average of two numbers from an average of three numbers, but whatever.) The book recommends you pick the four with the highest scores, and then skip directly to the chapters describing those. Frankly, I wish I'd followed that advice. And then I wish that there had also been the advice to SKIP chapters whose fit scores were actually negative, since they are lousy fits and the reader might just be irritated reading them. Personally, I read the whole book before coming back and taking the test.
There was only one activity per category to rate, and a couple of them were oddly phrased, so this isn't 100% accurate for me. It's the start of what annoyed me about the book: very weird categorization. I already listed the twelve categories; all are presented fairly equally in terms of their potential importance, with each reader being encouraged to work on at least three or four of them. In each chapter she presents (in not-too-much detail) the outcomes of various studies related to the activity. A few of these were quite interesting -- for example, when expressing gratitude, most people showed the biggest boost from listing things they were grateful for every week instead of every day. Doing it every day apparently just becomes a chore, for most. The author also encourages self-experimentation to see which strategies should be pursued when... I know I usually post to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
3goodthings or similar when I've had a crap day, and this apparently is pretty valid; doing it irregularly and when I really need the boost is a recognized strategy.
But back to complaining about categorization. The "taking care of your body" chapter covers "engaging in physical activity, meditating, laughing and smiling." Not the way I would have broken that one down at all. The optimism chapter focuses rather a lot on journaling about one's ideal "best possible self" future, which seems a little wacko to me, although the text also supports a more levelheaded "I can get through the day" kind of optimism.
The "practicing religion and spirituality" chapter, after annoying me as usual with discussions of how much happier religion and faith make people, randomly included a great one-page aside on "seeking meaning and purpose".... something that can be done entirely without religion! Gah! This a seriously insightful little section, talking about pursuing goals that are harmonious instead of conflicting, and feeling like one has a coherent life story, and being creative. Yes, being creative! Why was that buried deep in the bowels of "practicing religion", I'd like to know.
Overall, reading this book was pretty nice, but then it was on my favorite topic -- I'll read nearly anything on the subject of happiness research. I'm still flummoxed by its organization, and surprised at how many suggested activities were primarily mental ones (although I accept these may have been studied most often). If I were recommending a list of books to read about happiness, I'd recommend the following before this one:
I tend toward forgiveness on self-help books, though. If there's even one good idea that gets incorporated into my life, or one insight I can remember, then I consider it worth reading the book. Reading doesn't take long, and all the nitpicks are things I'll forget anyway.
The author also carefully makes the case that being happier is not just for feeling good, but is worth pursuing for wider reasons: being happier boosts your immune system, your energy levels, and your engagement with work and other people. One person being happier is a benefit to that person's "partners, families, communities and even society at large".
The most valuable 2.5 pages of this book comprise the "Person-Activity Fit Diagnostic", a little test that's meant to tell you which of the 12 happiness strategies in the book will likely be a good fit for you. (The test's a bit wonky since you wind up subtracting an average of two numbers from an average of three numbers, but whatever.) The book recommends you pick the four with the highest scores, and then skip directly to the chapters describing those. Frankly, I wish I'd followed that advice. And then I wish that there had also been the advice to SKIP chapters whose fit scores were actually negative, since they are lousy fits and the reader might just be irritated reading them. Personally, I read the whole book before coming back and taking the test.
My top four: Taking care of my body, doing activities that truly engage me, avoiding overthinking & social comparison, developing strategies for coping. Also high-scoring was savoring life's joys.
In the middle: expressing gratitude, practicing acts of kindness, learning to forgive.
My negative scores: practicing religion and spirituality, cultivating optimism, nurturing relationships, committing to goals (actually this one scored zero -- it's high in both "intrinsic" and "guilt"-type motivators for me and so it scored zero total).
There was only one activity per category to rate, and a couple of them were oddly phrased, so this isn't 100% accurate for me. It's the start of what annoyed me about the book: very weird categorization. I already listed the twelve categories; all are presented fairly equally in terms of their potential importance, with each reader being encouraged to work on at least three or four of them. In each chapter she presents (in not-too-much detail) the outcomes of various studies related to the activity. A few of these were quite interesting -- for example, when expressing gratitude, most people showed the biggest boost from listing things they were grateful for every week instead of every day. Doing it every day apparently just becomes a chore, for most. The author also encourages self-experimentation to see which strategies should be pursued when... I know I usually post to
3goodthings or similar when I've had a crap day, and this apparently is pretty valid; doing it irregularly and when I really need the boost is a recognized strategy.But back to complaining about categorization. The "taking care of your body" chapter covers "engaging in physical activity, meditating, laughing and smiling." Not the way I would have broken that one down at all. The optimism chapter focuses rather a lot on journaling about one's ideal "best possible self" future, which seems a little wacko to me, although the text also supports a more levelheaded "I can get through the day" kind of optimism.
The "practicing religion and spirituality" chapter, after annoying me as usual with discussions of how much happier religion and faith make people, randomly included a great one-page aside on "seeking meaning and purpose".... something that can be done entirely without religion! Gah! This a seriously insightful little section, talking about pursuing goals that are harmonious instead of conflicting, and feeling like one has a coherent life story, and being creative. Yes, being creative! Why was that buried deep in the bowels of "practicing religion", I'd like to know.
Overall, reading this book was pretty nice, but then it was on my favorite topic -- I'll read nearly anything on the subject of happiness research. I'm still flummoxed by its organization, and surprised at how many suggested activities were primarily mental ones (although I accept these may have been studied most often). If I were recommending a list of books to read about happiness, I'd recommend the following before this one:
I tend toward forgiveness on self-help books, though. If there's even one good idea that gets incorporated into my life, or one insight I can remember, then I consider it worth reading the book. Reading doesn't take long, and all the nitpicks are things I'll forget anyway.
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Date: 2010-04-10 12:43 pm (UTC)hah! No one ever knows where to put Being Creative, or even what constitutes Being Creative (note the LARGE number of people who insist you can Be Creative about anything from housekeeping [eeeew] to parenting to your daily work process to creativity via the standard tools of paint and art mat'ls) however getting relegated to spirituality seems like a new low.
So thank you for reading that and pointing out the useful page, so I can skip the rest.
My trouble with self-help books is that I tend to latch onto the wrong advice, with bad results. Alternatively the various ideas I dislike will not be forgotten, leaving them hooked into my psyche. An enhanced ability to forget would come in handy here!
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Date: 2010-04-10 12:54 pm (UTC)