Happiness Week 1: Devaluing and prioritizing happiness

This post is second in a series devoted to the subject of happiness in conjunction with the study course I am following on http://www.coursera.org called A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment: https://www.coursera.org/learn/happiness
To see all the posts in this series go to http://lublenok.blogspot.com/search/label/ALHF

So in my last post I gave my preliminary definition of happiness as I understand it now. Knowing what makes you happy is an important prerequisite for a happy life. I also introduced the balloon analogy and the concept of deadly happiness sins (things that deflate the happiness balloon) and happiness habits (things that inflate the balloon).

Today we'll talk about the first deadly sin and the habit which counteracts this sin. The sin consists in devaluing happiness and the habit is about prioritizing happiness without pursuing it.

Devaluing happiness is about sacrificing happiness for the sake of other things, making choices in life that are not conducive to our happiness. For example, people may value relationships and personal happiness over money, but they would often make choices that favor money over other things, like when choosing a better paying job over a more fulfilling one. When asked about what they would ask of a genie who can fulfill any desire, only 6% ask for happiness, while the top 3 items people ask for are: money, fame and success, and relationships. In many studies, people often prioritize value for many over what they like most. Or people favor being right over being happy.

So there is a paradox, which we shall call the fundamental happiness paradox, which is the tendency to sacrifice happiness for the sake of the other, less important goals. Few people will readily admit to this. On the one hand, we think happiness is important, yet we sacrifice happiness for other goals.

Why Do We Devalue Happiness?

Reason 1: Harboring negative beliefs about happiness: 
1) happiness leads to laziness (while the opposite is actually true),
2) happiness leads to selfishness (while the opposite is true),
3) happiness is fleeting

In fact, happiness has a lot of positive effect on us.

Reason 2: Failing to define happiness in concrete terms

Fluency effect: we tend to like something more when we understand it more easily.

Defining happiness was the first assignment for this course, which I did in my previous post.

Reason 3: Medium maximization: the tendency to chase the means to happiness (or other end goals) and to forget all about the end goals itself (e.g. happiness). This is about chasing money, status and fame, which are medium rather than happiness itself

The happiness habit to counteract devaluing happiness is: Prioritize but don't pursue happiness

- Remind yourself regularly about what you really want in life, especially when making choices
- On the other hand, we should not actively monitor or chase happiness, because if you do this you are likely to compare your current level of happiness to where you ideally want to be, which may actually have an adverse affect on you. It's like trying to fall asleep.