Why do people consider happiness fleeting

Because life was mostly short, brutal, and highly competitive over the two hundred thousand years our species has existed on this planet. And our brains are trained for this short, brutal, and highly competitive world. How short, brutal, and highly competitive was it? Stop, close your eyes, and picture the last time you felt completely alone in the middle of nowhere.

Was it camping in the mountains when you walked away from the fire and stood on the jagged edge of a mirrory lake? Was it a misty waterfall you found on a field trip when your classmates disappeared and all you could hear was the wind rustling the leaves in the forest canopy? You are now standing alone in the middle of the planet with none of those things. Take your phone out of your pocket and toss it away.

Take everything off. You are completely naked with nothing around. None of those things exist. And none of them will begin to exist before the end of your life! Were we happy back then? The better question is: Did we have time to be happy? In turn, being happy can have its own advantages.

More than three decades ago, Grant Study data showed that good mental health in men slowed the deterioration of their physical health, even after adjusting for genetics, obesity, and tobacco and alcohol use. Although Vaillant has since found that after age 50 vascular risk factors such as smoking, elevated diastolic blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and alcohol abuse appear to play a far greater role than mental health in subsequent health and longevity, other research still supports a link to mental health.

His findings have shown that happiness may be a collective phenomenon: Having a happy friend who lives within a mile of you, for example, appears to increase the probability that you will be happy as well.

Christakis agrees. Jessica Cerretani, a former assistant editor of Harvard Medicine , is now a freelance writer in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Etcoff ; John Soares G. Campus Alert. Returning to Campus. The Chill of Fear. The American philosopher Robert Nozick came up with a thought experiment to make the point. Nozick asks us to imagine a "machine that could give you any experience you desired". The machine would allow you to experience the bliss of fulfilling your every wish.

You could be a great poet, become the greatest inventor ever known, travel the Universe in a spaceship of your own design, or become a well-liked chef at a local restaurant.

In reality though, you would be unconscious in a life-support tank. Because the machine makes you believe that the simulation is real, your choice is final. Would you plug in? This hypothetical situation might seem frivolous, but if we are willing to sacrifice limitless pleasure for real meaning, then happiness is not the highest good.

In , the philosopher who wrote those words, John Stuart Mill, became mired in unhappiness. In his autobiography, Mill describes what we now recognise as depressive anhedonia: "I was in a dull state of nerves, such as everybody is occasionally liable to; unsusceptible to enjoyment or pleasurable excitement; one of those moods when what is pleasure at other times, becomes insipid or indifferent.

Mill could take no pleasure from life. This would be bad for most people, but for Mill it pointed to something even more worrying. Bentham went further than Epicurus by making happiness the ultimate appeal of an individual life and the ultimate appeal of morality.

For Bentham, all moral, political, and personal questions can be settled by one simple principle — "the greatest happiness for the greatest number".

But if that was the one principle to live by, how could Mill justify his own existence, devoid as it was of happiness? Dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and pain are part of the human condition and so "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied", according to Mill.

He continued to believe that happiness was deeply important, but came to see that aiming at happiness will rarely lead to it. Instead, Mill thought that you should aim for other goods, and happiness might be a felicitous by-product. But this also suggests that a good life can be an unhappy one. What Mill recognised was what Aristotle had argued two millennia earlier — the passing pleasure of happiness is secondary to living a good life, or of achieving what Aristotle called eudaimonia.

Eudaimonia is difficult to translate into our contemporary concepts. Some, like the philosopher Julia Annas, translate it directly as "happiness", while others scholars prefer "human flourishing". Whatever the translation, it marks a distinctive contrast to our modern conception of happiness.

Like our modern conception of happiness, eudaimonia is the ultimate purpose of life. But unlike happiness, eudaimonia is realised through habits and actions, not through mental states.

Mental Subtraction of Positive Events: Visualize what your life would be like without the good things you have. Meaningful Photos: Photograph, then write about, things that are meaningful to you. Gift of Time : Invest in your relationships by spending quality time with people you care about. Time Capsule : Create a collection of positive experiences to surprise your future self.

And here are some of the keys to happiness Lyubomirsky and other researchers have identified. Build relationships: Perhaps the dominant finding from happiness research is that social connections are key to happiness. Pursue happiness indirectly : Rather than constantly monitoring your emotions and striving to feel better, try to organize your daily life around activities that are naturally enjoyable—including some of the ones below.

Practice savoring , the art of maintaining and deepening positive feelings by becoming more aware of them. Research suggests that our ability to savor impacts how much of a mood boost we get from happy events.

Give thanks: Research by Michael McCullough, Robert Emmons , Lyubomirsky, and others has revealed the power of simply counting our blessings on a regular basis. Practice kindness: Research by Elizabeth Dunn and her colleagues finds that people report greater happiness when they spend money on others than when they spend it on themselves, even though they initially think the opposite would be true.

Similarly, neuroscience research shows that when we do nice things for others, our brains light up in areas associated with pleasure and reward. Give up grudges: Groundbreaking studies by Everett Worthington , Michael McCullough , and their colleagues show that when we forgive those who have wronged us, we feel better about ourselves, experience more positive emotions, and feel closer to others.