What does the formula for happiness look like? Here’s my attempt at it:
happiness =
social-acceptance
+ self-acceptance
+ meaning
+ hope
+ pleasure
+ efficacy
+ resilience
+ optimism
– physical-wants
– pain
– anxiety
– loss and depression
Positives
social-acceptance = human interaction with the sort of people you want to interact with in the form of warm and trusting relationships, and the gut-level feeling that this group accepts you, likes you, and respects you
Interventions: exposure therapy if you have social anxiety, avoiding mean people, social skills training, getting direct feedback on how to be a better friend, meeting a wide range of people in a wide variety of social circles, leaving a social circle that treats you badly
–
self-acceptance = believing you are not fundamentally bad or worthless, that you are worthy of love and respect, not feeling excessively guilty about your past actions, etc.
Interventions: self-compassion training
–
meaning = feeling on a gut level that your life has meaning or significance, that actions you take have the ability to influence what happens, and that the world in general is not meaningless
Interventions: working on a project that you find deeply important for a cause much bigger than yourself, cognitive behavioral therapy or antidepressants if you think you may be depressed and haven’t tried them yet
–
hope = feeling on a gut level that there will be good things in the future and that your future is not doomed
Interventions: mapping out plans for your future, applying problem solving techniques to problems that you feel are hopeless, life coaching
–
pleasure = for instance, eating delicious food, listening to beautiful music, play, doing work you find fun, etc.
Interventions: spending money on pleasurable experiences rather than things, engaging in pleasurable experiences at the maximal rate you can afford without them getting dull or routine, trying a wide variety of activities to see which you most enjoy
–
efficacy = the belief that you have the capability to achieve the things that you want to achieve, and the feeling that you are actively achieving worthwhile things (whether in work, in hobbies, or in your social life)
Interventions: if possible, choosing work where you get a consistent feeling of accomplishment, taking on side projects or hobbies that give you a feeling of accomplishment, training each week at a skill that you can watch yourself improving at, looking for small achievements that you can hit easily and then building up slowly to more and more difficult ones
–
resilience = the ability to recover quickly from setbacks, failures, and bad conditions
–
optimism = a mindset where you see the best in things, interpret ambiguous events positively, see the silver lining in bad things, etc.
Negatives
physical-wants = hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation, the need for warmth, etc.
–
pain = injuries, illnesses, physical environments, or social treatment that causes consistent substantial pain
Interventions: avoiding repetitive stress injury by using good typing practices, avoiding chronic back pain by learning to have good sitting posture, leaving abusive relationships
–
anxiety = constantly worrying about, or ruminating or obsessing over what will happen or did happen (e.g., from uncertainty about basic security like clean water, nourishing food, reliable shelter, or safety from physical danger, or worrying about social rejection or fear of failure), or regular triggers of intense fear
Interventions: regularly doing intense exercise, cognitive behavioral therapy or antidepressants if you think you may have an anxiety disorder, Exposure and Response Prevention if you think you may have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Prolonged Exposure Therapy if you think you might have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
–
loss and depression = having something you value taken away from you, or knowing that you will lose something you value in the near future
Please note: if you have been feeling a lot of sadness, or you worry that you might be depressed, I recommend seeing a professional and checking out our app UpLift.
If you like this essay, you may also like The Fourier transform of happiness and Ten theories for how to achieve true happiness (and useful resources for you to try them out).
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