The Happiness Project: How To Be Happier

Happiness Myth No. 10: It’s Selfish To Try To Be Happier

As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for last two weeks, I’ve been debunking one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Myth No. 9: Spending Some Time Alone Will Make You Feel Better.

Happiness Myth No. 10: The biggest myth—it’s selfish and self-centered to try to be happier.

Myth No. 10 is the most pernicious myth about happiness. It comes in a few varieties. One holds that “in a world so full of suffering, you can be happy only if you’re callous and self-centered.” Another one is “happy people become wrapped up in their own pleasure; they’re complacent and uninterested in the world.”

Wrong. Studies show that, quite to the contrary, happier people are more likely to help other people, they’re more interested in social problems, they do more volunteer work, and they contribute more to charity. They’re less preoccupied with their personal problems. By contrast, less-happy people are more apt to be defensive, isolated, and self-absorbed, and unfortunately, their negative moods are catching (technical name: emotional contagion). Just as eating your dinner doesn't help starving children in India, being blue yourself doesn't help unhappy people become happier.

I've certainly noticed this about myself. When I’m feeling happy, I find it easier to notice other people’s problems, I feel that I have more energy to try to take action, I have the emotional wherewithal to tackle sad or difficult issues, and I’m not as preoccupied with myself. I feel more generous and forgiving.

As I’ve worked on my happiness project, one of my biggest intellectual breakthroughs was the identification of my Second Splendid Truth. There’s a circularity to it that confused me for a long time. At last, one June morning, it became clear:

One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy.
One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.

Everyone accepts the first part of the Second Splendid Truth, but the second part is just as important. By making the effort to make yourself happier, you better equip yourself to make other people happier, as well. It’s not selfish to try to be happier. In fact, the epigraph to the book The Happiness Project is a quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson: “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.”

* On a positive-psychology listserv, I read comments by Professor Todd Kashdan, and I see he did an interesting study on the relationship of gratitude to happiness—and how men are much less likely to feel and express gratitude than are women. Interesting.

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Happiness Myth No. 7: Doing "Random Acts of Kindness" Brings Happiness

As I’ve studied happiness over the past few years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for two weeks, I’m debunking one “happiness myth” that I believed before I started my happiness project. Yesterday I wrote about Myth No. 6: Money Can't Buy Happiness.

Happiness Myth No. 7: Doing "random acts of kindness" brings happiness.

Half wrong. It is true that studies show that if you commit a random act of kindness, you'll feel happier. What’s considered a “random act of kindness”? Giving a flower to a stranger, paying the toll for the car behind you, or putting coins in someone’s meter are typical examples.

Doing something thoughtful for someone else is a surefire way to make yourself happier. Do good, feel good.

However, probably the reason you feel happier is that you’re imagining that you’re making someone else happy (that’s the Second Splendid Truth, Part A)—and that’s not as true as you might think. A study shows that many people reacted to receiving a random act of kindness with—suspicion! (See also Larsen and Prizmic's "Regulation of Emotional Well-Being" in The Science of Subjective Well-Being.)

This certainly rings true for me. If someone randomly does something kind for me, I’m on guard. It’s not that I have a profound distrust for mankind; it’s just that I’m uneasy if I don’t understand why someone behaves in an unusual way. It’s not the kindness of the act that’s the problem; it’s the randomness.

We don’t expect people to act randomly. A person might feel suspicious when you hand him a flower, for example, because he might think you’re trying to invoke the very strong psychological phenomenon of “reciprocation”: When someone gives you something or does something for you, you feel you must reciprocate. That’s why members of the Hare Krishna Society gave flowers to passers-by in airports. That’s why charities send those complimentary address labels when they ask you for money. (For a fascinating discussion of reciprocation, read the brilliant book by Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.)

It’s always nice to be nice, of course. It’s not bad to practice random acts of kindness. But if you want to build your happiness based on the happiness you bring to other people—the noblest ways of boosting happiness—it’s more productive to be targeted. Help a co-worker even when you’re rushing to meet a deadline yourself. Go out of your way to help an overwhelmed parent juggling toddlers and grocery bags. Putting money in someone’s meter is just such an unexpected action that there’s a good chance that it won’t be understood correctly.

Maybe some people are attracted to acting randomly because it allows them to be more secretive about their good deeds; some people believe that the fact that you get “credit” for a worthy act somehow minimizes its worth, and along the same lines, some people argue that you can never act with true altruism, because performing good acts brings the pleasure of happiness. My view: all the better!

The fact is, the sight of someone performing a generous or kind act always makes me feel happy. Especially if it’s me! The spectacle of virtue inspires the feeling of elevation—one of the most delicate pleasures that the world offers. As Simone Weil observed, “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” That’s true no matter who is performing that real good.

So perform acts of kindness. Randomly, but even better, not randomly.

How about you? What has been your experience with random acts of kindness—whether on the receiving or the giving end?

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