Why happiness should no longer be our end goal

Happiness is annoyingly elusive and frustratingly fleeting. And just because we may experience it one moment, doesn’t mean it will hang. So is it time we look to something else, asks Kylie Lang.

Hands up if you’ve already broken your New Year’s resolution.

Cue a Mexican wave, because you’re not alone.

Most of us who bother to make resolutions trash them within the first few weeks – and more than three-quarters barely even get started, according to leadership consultancy Franklin Covey.

The reasons are varied – being slack, overambitious or “too busy” among them – but if you actually analyse our most common resolutions, we could be setting ourselves up to fail.

Think about it. What is at the core of the following – to lose weight, get fit, pay off debts, travel more, stress less?

Surely, it is the attainment of happiness.

If I’m thinner, I’ll feel happier. If I have more money, I’ll be happier, and so on.

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But happiness is annoyingly elusive and frustratingly fleeting. Just because we may experience it in this moment, doesn’t mean it will hang around in the next. In fact, you can bet it won’t.

Now I don’t have a degree in psychology, but I’ve read enough self-help books to think that I should write my own – preferably on location in the north of Italy, but I digress.

Often our attempts at happiness fail to get to the core of who we really are. Picture: iStock

When happiness as a kind of permanent state is the goal, we will always come unstuck. This is because we’re standing on shaky ground, says sociologist Christine Carter.

“Our wants and desires are plenty, and that’s probably what pushes us along, reaching higher for new roles, homes, adventures and loves,” Dr Carter says. “While this constant pursuit gives our lives momentum, it won’t lead us to permanent happiness for the goalpost is always moving.”

In his book, The Pursuit of Happiness, psychologist David Myers says every desirable experience, including the pleasure of a new possession, is transitory.

“Even the most positive events will cease to have (an) impact, as they themselves are absorbed into the new baseline against which further events are judged,” he says.

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This dovetails with the concept of the “hedonic treadmill”, coined in the 1970s and suggesting that happiness plateaus – it levels out so that any highs become blips.

I hate to state the obvious, but this is why retail therapy is a rip off. Any gratification from “stuff” is short lived. My shoe collection is proof – although having culled said collection this week and donating a chunk of it to Vinnies, The Salvos and Red Cross, I can tell you that helping a worthy cause induces a better kind of buzz. Even the thanks you get from appreciative op-shop volunteers is enough to make you realise how little it takes to feel good.

Every new year, we think that if we have more money, we’ll be happier. Picture: iStock

Professor Roy Baumeister is a Princeton-educated American social psychologist now based at the University of Queensland. He has authored more than 30 books and 500 scientific articles and is particularly interested in how people think, feel and behave.

A happy life and a meaningful life are not necessarily the same thing, Prof Baumeister says.

In a survey he led of almost 400 adults, meaningfulness resulted from giving to others. It was not linked to money, health, creature comforts and other things we might like to hold up as New Year’s resolutions. Happiness, on the other hand, was.

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It was also present focused, where meaningfulness also thoughtfully considered the past and future. As such, happiness was fleeting. Meaningfulness elicited a longer-lasting sense of satisfaction and contentment.

Prof Baumeister isn’t the first to suggest that seeking pleasure for its own sake will fail to bring sustained joy. Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates said happiness was “not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less” while Aristotle linked happiness with “complete virtue”, or leading a moral life through our actions.

Happiness will come and go, but if we find meaning, we crack the code. Picture: iStock

The Queensland academic takes it a step further, arguing that the pursuit of happiness at the expense of real meaning will, in fact, be highly stressful and infuriating. Surely then, it’s smarter to seek purpose in our daily lives – through deepening our close relationships, and gazing beyond our navel and reaching out to help others we may not even know.

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Considering New Year’s resolutions in this light, it’s hardly surprising that we struggle to keep those which revolve around specific “gets” for ourselves.

Perhaps we are setting unrealistic goals after all. Yes, I’d like to shed a few kilos. Of course, I’d love to run around the park without doubling over in a stitch, and by all means, bring on reduced stress levels. These are fair enough on any wish list.

But by taking a broader view – and aiming to be more useful to others – we might find the motivation we need to succeed.

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Originally published as Why happiness should no longer be our end goal