When I was young, I was indoctrinated to believe that the purpose of life is to bring justice to all serve the whole humanity. We are taught that we need to be healthy, not for ourselves, but to better serve the humanity. You might laugh at this, but that period of simple-mindedness was characterized by more happiness than the later period when I was more deliberate in pursuing happiness.
I started to take pursuit of happiness as my prime goal around high school. All else, like money, is subordinate to that. In sophomore year, when I was chatting with a professor about his different experience with jobs in private sector, government and academia, I asked bluntly:" Which job gave the best lifestyle?" That professor was amused and said "It is probably too early for you to consider that." He is probably right, for reasons I will explain later.
I will start with an anecdote.Walking back to home today is enlightening. I was checking the weather forecast the other day, and noticed that it gonna be very cold today with a possible snow storm. I was depressed because I anticipated that I will be miserable when I had to walk 45 min from school to home. I was agitated at the prospect of this suffering. It turned out I was, to my surprise, very happy during the commute. The snow storm, far from making me suffer, actually took the usual boredom of commute. It was more fun walking on the snow, slippery as it could be. My heart was buzzing for joy. It is amazing that when I left office, I was anticipating the worst and five minutes into the snow, I was elated.
May I suggest that happiness is mysterious?
I started thinking about this topic a long time ago. In my usual nerdiness, I started making predictions about what will make me happy. I divided them into three categories, short horizon(1 day), medium horizon (1 week-1 month) and long term horizon (1 year). I am curious how accurate am I able to predict how happy I will be for different horizons. For short horizon it is 63%, medium 46%, and long term 0%. The caveat is that I only have two observations for long term, so it is not precise estimate.
This is quite startling. I made plans to maximize happiness. I thought everything I did was in pursuit of happiness.
I am sure I am not alone in my pursuit of happiness, and I am not alone either to be frustrated by the elusive quest for happiness.
The sad/exciting truth is, this is no engineering problem that we can sit down, and find a solution. Happiness is a state of mind, and it is a gift. When we run after it, it might disappear. It pops us when we least expect it. The popular self-help literature does not lack advice. Do something fun. Have friends. Develop a hobby. Let go of negative feelings. Duh....Hobby is something we feel happy doing it. Friends are people we feel happy hanging out with. It is quite circular to give such advice. There are more: Exercise. Eat food that makes you happier. These pieces of advice remind me of someone who collect coupons to become a millionaire.
Why do I wrote this? It came out of my observation that by deliberately pursuing happiness, I am scaring it away. By being obsessed with happiness, I become anxious to achieve it, agitated in anticipation of potentially unhappy ordeals. The truth is, I know nothing. I do not know if something gonna make me happy or unhappy. If history is any guidance, a coin flip could do better for medium horizon prediction. Yet, I planned for things, weighing trade-offs, and get tormented by my mentality. I was obsessed with making the choice that will make me happiest (or I thought will make me happiest). I got anxious about making the wrong choice, and anxious about not getting the first choice.
Before coming to Harvard, I was sure that I gonna suffer in winter. I gonna hate the winter commute (though I do realize that I am likely to enjoy winter sports). It turns out quite the opposite. This month, I led a very happy life.
It is perhaps time to let go. To let go of my pursuit of happiness so as to achieve true happiness. I am not an idealist, thinking that we should have no plans, and just let life takes us where it takes. I am however, letting go of obsession, the obsession to control. From my limited exposure to buddhist teaching, they preach that obsession （执） is the source of all pain.
Finally, I dedicate this blog to my Williams friends, in particular, Qiao Zhang , Sungik Yang, and Roshan Sharma who mysteriously brought so much happiness to my undergraduate years. It is not through alcohol or drugs, but through your mere presence.
This is really interesting! I've never thought about happiness this way - brought up in a very anti-hedonistic environment where the most candid display of happiness is discouraged and considered detriment to personal development. I guess in a way it proves your point. I didn't grow up depressed despite that counter-intuitive parenting style, although maybe it's still too early to draw conclusion. Anyways, fun article!
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