Seeking contentment

In the most recent issue of Scientific American Mind, psychologist Michael Wiederman discusses his research on happiness and why it's so hard to achieve that elusive state, even momentarily. What he finds and reports on is quite interesting, and coincides with some thoughts I have been having on this very same subject.

According to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, which has been asking Americans to rate their levels of happiness since 1957, the proportion who rate themselves as "very happy" has remained about the same at one-third across the decades. So in spite of our increased affluence and technological and scientific improvements and advances, we are no less happy. Children and college students, according to another review of research, are more anxious today than kids int he Fifties. The world of "Leave it to Beaver" might have been a bit more innocent despite the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Today we face many other, different threats of annihilation.

We have a tendency to think more negatively than positively, according to Wiederman, and this goes back to our species' earliest history when to survive, Homo Sapiens had to be aware of the negative changes in the environment which signaled danger. Our brains are wired to "notice trouble" and we take the positive experiences for granted and focus on the bothersome aspects of life.

Sad, but so true when I think about my life on a day to day basis. While generally I float along in a state of habituation to the the life I have created for myself here through my job, work friends, family, and online friends, I don't often feel "happy." What can go wrong tends to pop up in my mind more than what can go right.

What does "happy" even mean, anyway? A state of complete bliss? Comfort in religious or spiritual attainments? Joy in being alive and healthy? There are times when I feel a rush of happiness, but those are just moments.

I don't think we can ever shield ourselves from the realities we confront in the dailly news unless we choose to go off and isolate ourselves from it and never turn on the TV or Internet or read a newspaper. Unfortunately, being a former newspaper reporter and editor, this is not an option for me. I am a newsoholic. I seem to need a steady diet of what's happening in my community, state, nation and world. Yet, as Wiederman says, the danger in this is that we get habituated to the bad news and adverse conditions so that, for sanity's sake, we no longer even notice or think about it until we see that unimaginably horrible news photo from the war in Iraq or stop to think about the total madness that country has descended to. That is just one glaring example.

Yet, despite all the reasons to be unhappy and to worry and be anxious, there are countless acts of kindsness and prospects for seeing and finding beauty and wholeness in this broken world and civilization. I don't think people would bring children into the world if this were not so.

Wiederman offers these suggestions for becoming happier:

* Do not focus on goals. We tend to think a certain accomplishment or goal accomplished will make us happier, but in most cases, people's lives are not significantly different after reaching these goals.

* Make time to volunteeer.

* Practice moderdation. You may enjoy two or three short vacations more than a long one, for instance.

* Practice living in the moment. This is alll we reallly have, in fact.

And finally, what I think is the key to what we want out of life -- contentment. According to Wiederman, we should:

Rethink [our] beliefs about the nature of happiness. Experiences of great pleasure or joy stand out in memory, andit is easy to conclude that being truly happy means being in that state most of the time. The very reason you savor and remember such an experience, however, is because it is not the norm. Instead of equating happiness with peak experiences, you would be better to think of happiness as a state of contentment and relative lack of anxiety or regret.

I think if I could learn not to regret or think about past mistakes and failures, however grievous and awful, I will have positive energy instead to concentrate on the present. I find that as I get older, I do just this. I don't look back that much, and I know that thinking about what the future might be like is the greatest folly of all.