Five Happiness Traps

You think you know what it takes to find happiness. Just follow the yellow brick road, right? Not so fast! The road to happiness is riddled with sinkholes, traps, and dead ends according to Dan Baker and Cameron Stauth, authors of What Happy People Know. Specifically they enumerate Five Happiness Traps:

1) Trying to buy happiness

2) Trying to find happiness through pleasure

3) Trying to be happy by resolving the past

4) Trying to be happy by overcoming weakness

5) Trying to force happiness

While they spend much more time explaining trap number one than any of the others, we've already explored it a few times on this blog, so here's a quick and dirty synopsis of each trap. Just enough information so you'll know them when you see them and hopefully avoid them like the H1N1 virus!

1) Trying to buy happiness is a futile and misguided endeavor. As we've explained before, once you rise above the poverty level each increase in income produces a smaller and smaller corresponding  rise in happiness. Still, many of us persist in believing the more money = more happiness equation. Or, as was said back in the 80's, "Whoever dies with the most toys wins." What they win, though, is usually a miserable, shallow life! In a large survey 89% of Americans expressed the opinion that the U.S., as a whole, is "far too materialistic." Ironically, approximately the same percentage said they'd really like to have more! As the authors advise, "Financial security is fine. But it's not the path to happiness."

2) Trying to find happiness through pleasure is another dead end street. Sure, everyone wants some pleasure in their life, but maxing out on pleasure does not equal maximum happiness. What happens is that you become accustomed to whatever level of pleasure you experience, and the amount of stimulus it takes to make you happy starts to rise. You end up on what researchers call  "the hedonic treadmill," chasing pleasure faster and faster but with less and less resulting happiness.

3) Trying to be happy by resolving the past is the path of traditional clinical psychology. According to this school of thought remembering and reprocessing past trauma will free you from it, and you will automatically become happier. There are only three problems with his approach -- it takes a long time, it's very costly, and it doesn't work! Mere talk and processing don't produce happiness; action and transcendence do. Moving forward, not moving backwards is the way to be happy. As Baker and Stauth say, "Your powers of intellect and spirit can create new meanings out of old memories."

4) Trying to be happy by overcoming weakness is the standard self-help approach, but this attempt, too, is ill conceived and ineffective. Working with your weaknesses is painful. Working with your strengths is fun. Which would you rather do? Trying to fix weaknesses is reactive; building upon your strengths is proactive. Finally, whatever you focus upon expands. Focusing upon your weaknesses in  fact pours energy into them. Focusing upon your strengths makes you stronger and more powerful, and then you are even more capable of building a joyous,  happy life.

5) Trying to force happiness is totally unnecessary and counterproductive. As the old Zen saying goes, "don't push the river, it flows by itself."Simple physics tells us that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Chase happiness and it runs away; try and force happiness, and it resists. The authors have identified 12 qualities of happiness on which you should put your attention. Develop these qualities, and happiness is the inevitable result. 

But whoa, twelve qualities sounds like a lot! Better leave those for another day. For today, just familiarize yourself with the Five Happiness Traps and don't be seduced by them. Appreciate what you have, enjoy simple pleasures, be present-centered, enjoy your strengths, and let the happiness flow!