The less we try to think about a blue elephant, the more likely this creature persists in residing in our thoughts. Imagine the blue elephant represents our unhappiness – our dissatisfaction with life – hence the color blue. Obviously, no one likes feeling blue, and when we experience it, we’re likely to try getting rid of it.
But the more we try to push it away, the bigger the blue elephant seems to become. Often, the more we try to fight negative mental states like anxiety and sadness directly, we experience that they get worse. We experience not only the unwanted mental state itself but also the fact that we fail to get rid of it.
That’s why trying to suppress mild anxiety can turn into a panic attack and why forcing ourselves not to be sad often works counterintuitively. The same goes for negative thinking. The coming and going of thoughts are beyond our control.
We cannot unthink a thought. Like with the elephant, the more we try to get rid of a thought, the more it persists. Because by thinking about it, we invite the thought to stay.
Reversely, the mental state of happiness also seems of paradoxical nature. The more we wish to be happy, the less likely we succeed. But if we stop desiring happiness and stop pursuing it directly, we’re more likely to experience it.
Happiness seems to be like a butterfly: the more you try to catch it, the more it escapes your grasp. But if you stop searching, it might just appear sitting on your shoulder when you don’t expect it. But how does this work exactly?
Why is happiness so elusive? And is there any scientific explanation for why craving and searching for happiness reduce our chances of finding it? This video explores the happiness paradox.
Happiness is elusive. We cannot obtain it directly. If we could, the vast majority of people, if not everyone, would be happy all the time, as they know precisely how to get it.
In the 19th century, American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in one of his personal notebooks, and I quote: Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. End quote.
Whatever we pursue, there’s no guarantee that happiness will result from it. We may have expectations of happiness being a consequence of certain actions. But in many cases, these expectations do not align with reality.
For example, we could have the expectation and desire that meeting with a friend will generate a sense of satisfaction. But there’s a chance that this meeting will not provide us with the happiness we seek, leading to disappointment; moreover, the failure to meet our expectations might even make things worse. Chances are that we continue our pursuit of happiness in other ways to find it; in some cases, it indeed occurs, while in other cases, it doesn’t.
It seems that we can more or less create the conditions in which happiness is more likely to arise. But, ultimately, it remains elusive. The so-called paradox of hedonism, first coined by the utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick, explains that the conscious pursuit of pleasure interferes with the actual experience of it.
The more we look for it, the less room we leave for the actual possibility of experiencing it. Moreover, if happiness becomes our sole pursuit, then we may close our eyes to other goals. Philosopher and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl stated that it’s impossible to pursue happiness directly: it must ‘ensue.
’ This means that with whatever we do, happiness shouldn’t be the goal but rather an unintended side effect of our actions. Frankl argued that happiness could be a byproduct of “one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. ” Frankl himself disposed of the goal of happiness when he was imprisoned in several concentration camps during the Second World War and found meaning instead.
A purpose greater than himself, for example, his wife, that could still be out there or using his skills as a doctor to help prisoners kept him going. He discovered that suffering sometimes ceases to be suffering when meaning is found and that even happiness could occur in extremely harsh conditions. Like success, happiness must happen, according to Frankl.
Happiness cannot be achieved directly, and therefore it should not be the focus of our actions. To get it, we should stop caring about it. In other words: the less you seek, the more you’ll find.
Aside from philosophical contemplations about the elusiveness of happiness, academic research also shows that the less we seek happiness, the more likely we’re to encounter it, and vice versa. A 2021 study called ‘The paradox of pursuing happiness’ by Felicia Zerwas and Brett Ford (link below) elaborated on how the more people value happiness, the less happy they are. I quote: Most people aim to feel happy and typically, the more someone strives for a goal the more likely they are to reach it.
However, this logic does not always apply to striving for happiness. Mounting evidence suggests that intensely valuing happiness predicts negative consequences in both the short term (e. g.
, less positive emotion) and the long term (e. g. , worse well-being).
End quote. To make the paradox of pursuing happiness comprehensible, they used a model of goal pursuit (based on existing models of goal pursuit), which they applied to happiness. The model begins with setting the ‘happiness goal,’ which comes from an intense desire to be happy.
To reach that goal, one engages in ‘emotion regulation’ during a phase of ‘happiness regulation,’ which entails strategies to increase happiness. For example: to reach one’s desired state of happiness, one goes on a trip, goes shopping, or visits a therapist. Then follows the phase of monitoring one’s progress toward happiness, in which one compares the ‘happiness goal’ to one’s current state.
It’s possible that one’s current emotional state aligns with one’s desired state, which leads to a ‘well-being outcome’ we can consider successful. However, if one’s current state isn’t on par with one’s desired state, this can lead to two things: first of all, one re-engages in the ‘happiness regulation’ phase, applying strategies to increase happiness. The second thing that might occur is a so-called meta-emotion; in this case, feeling disappointed in one’s current state.
This meta-emotion – an emotion about an emotion – directly influences one’s current state. For example, one goes on a trip with the expectation of it generating the ‘happiness goal. ’ But during the trip, it turns out that the goal is not achieved, an observation that in itself impacts one’s mood negatively.
Moreover, the study refers to several lines of research that found that merely monitoring a hedonic experience interferes with that experience. In regards to seeking happiness, this means that the act of reflecting on one’s happiness goal impacts one’s current state negatively. The model of ‘goal pursuit’ shows us that happiness as a goal can go wrong in several ways.
Firstly, if the goal is too high, one is unlikely to achieve it, leading to (secondly) the meta-emotion of ‘disappointment’ after monitoring the experience. Thirdly, applying strategies to increase happiness (as in happiness regulation) doesn’t always have the desired outcome. The latter may be so because one selects the wrong strategies and because the desired happiness goal we’ve set is simply too high to achieve.
I quote: Having high expectations for the intensity of one’s happiness can be detrimental by rendering the goal largely unreachable. A field study nicely demonstrated this notion by finding that individuals with the biggest plans for their New Year’s Eve celebrations were the least happy afterwards, compared to individuals who had low or no expectations for their plans. Even when happiness is within reach, high standards can hinder individuals’ ability to meet their goals.
End quote. So, the study shows that the more intense we want happiness to be, the less likely we’ll achieve it. By keeping our expectations regarding happiness low, on the other hand, we are more likely to achieve a mental state of satisfaction and keep the meta-emotions of disappointment at bay: after all, the lower our expectations are, the less there is to disappoint.
Doing without expectation If you seek it, you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness. End quote. So, the question remains, how can we find it without seeking it?
What it seems to boil down to is: doing things that might generate happiness but, paradoxically, without having happiness as a goal (or having it just as a minor goal) nor expecting the things we do to achieve it. Doing so prevents one from setting a difficult or impossible goal to achieve, which negatively impacts one’s mental state when failing to attain it. If our actions don’t generate happiness, that’s okay, as it’s not the goal anyway.
But if they do, that’s even better: our actions have generated a welcome byproduct. An example of letting happiness arise as a byproduct is how the Stoics pursue virtue. Stoics subdivide virtue into wisdom, moderation, justice, and courage.
From the Stoic viewpoint, living well by following and developing these qualities eventually leads to the eudaimonic experience, which is Stoic happiness. For the Stoics, happiness is a consequence of living virtuously, so it’s not attained directly. Viktor Frankl encouraged us to find meaning in one’s circumstances by, for example, doing good deeds for the people around us, through which happiness could ensue.
By focusing on goals other than happiness, every bit of happiness that might come from them will be an unexpected bonus and, thus, positively impacts our mood. For example, instead of going on a trip to feel happy, we could use that trip to get educated or get inspiration for creative work. Instead of spending money on material possessions hoping that this generates happiness, we could use that money to help others.
And if we don’t experience happiness at all as a consequence of our actions, at least we did something good or productive, which, in itself, is nothing to be unhappy about. For those who love reading, Einzelgänger just released a new compilation book: Loose, Letting Stuff Go, which contains a selection of essays revised and edited for print, exploring ways to let go of the many attachments of daily life. Loose is available on Amazon as a paperback and ebook.
Links below. Thank you for watching.
