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Authors: Jane McGonigal
Tags: General, Social Science, Computers, Essay/s, Technology & Engineering, Games, Social Aspects, Popular Culture, Video & Electronic, Games - Social aspects, Telecommunications
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The Four Secrets to Making Our Own Happiness
Many different competing theories of happiness have emerged from the field of positive psychology, but if there’s one thing virtually all positive psychologists agree on, it’s this: there are many ways to be happy, but we cannot find happiness. No object, no event, no outcome or life circumstance can deliver real happiness to us. We have to make our own happiness—by working hard at activities that provide their own reward. 15
When we try to find happiness outside of ourselves, we’re focused on what positive psychologists call “extrinsic” rewards—money, material goods, status, or praise. When we get what we want, we feel good. Unfortunately, the pleasures of found happiness don’t last very long. We build up a tolerance for our favorite things and start to want more. It takes bigger and better rewards just to trigger the same level of satisfaction and pleasure. The more we try to “find” happiness, the harder it gets. Positive psychologists call this process “hedonic adaptation,” and it’s one of the biggest hindrances to long-term life satisfaction. 16 The more we consume, acquire, and elevate our status, the harder it is to stay happy. Whether it’s money, grades, promotions, popularity, attention, or just plain material things we want, scientists agree: seeking out external rewards is a sure path to sabotaging our own happiness.
On the other hand, when we set out to make our own happiness, we’re focused on activity that generates intrinsic rewards—the positive emotions, personal strengths, and social connections that we build by engaging intensely with the world around us. We’re not looking for praise or payouts. The very act of what we’re doing, the enjoyment of being fully engaged, is enough.
The scientific term for this kind of self-motivated, self-rewarding activity is autotelic (from the Greek words for “self,” auto , and “goal,” telos ). 17 We do autotelic work because it engages us completely, and because intense engagement is the most pleasurable, satisfying, and meaningful emotional state we can experience.
As long as we are regularly immersed in self-rewarding hard work, we will be happy more often than not—no matter what else is going on in our lives. This is one of the earliest hypotheses of positive psychology, and a fairly radical idea. It contradicts what so many of us have been taught to believe—that we need life to be a certain way in order for us to be happy, and that the easier life is the happier we are. But the relationship between hard work, intrinsic reward, and lasting happiness has been verified and confirmed through hundreds of studies and experiments.
One well-known study conducted at the University of Rochester, published in 2009, neatly upturns one of the most common assumptions about how happiness works. Researchers tracked 150 recent college graduates for two years, monitoring their goals and reported happiness levels. They compared the rates at which the graduates achieved both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, with self-reported levels of well-being and life satisfaction. The researchers’ unequivocal conclusion: “The attainment of extrinsic, or ‘American Dream,’ goals—money, fame, and being considered physically attractive by others— does not contribute to happiness at all. ” In fact, they reported, far from creating well-being, achieving extrinsic rewards “actually does contribute to some ill-being.” If we let our desire for more and more extrinsic rewards monopolize our time and attention, it prevents us from engaging in autotelic activities that would actually increase our happiness.
On the other hand, in the same study the University of Rochester researchers found that individuals who focused on intrinsically rewarding activity, working hard to develop their personal strengths and build social relationships, for example, were measurably happier
The Four Secrets to Making Our Own Happiness
Many different competing theories of happiness have emerged from the field of positive psychology, but if there’s one thing virtually all positive psychologists agree on, it’s this: there are many ways to be happy, but we cannot find happiness. No object, no event, no outcome or life circumstance can deliver real happiness to us. We have to make our own happiness—by working hard at activities that provide their own reward. 15
When we try to find happiness outside of ourselves, we’re focused on what positive psychologists call “extrinsic” rewards—money, material goods, status, or praise. When we get what we want, we feel good. Unfortunately, the pleasures of found happiness don’t last very long. We build up a tolerance for our favorite things and start to want more. It takes bigger and better rewards just to trigger the same level of satisfaction and pleasure. The more we try to “find” happiness, the harder it gets. Positive psychologists call this process “hedonic adaptation,” and it’s one of the biggest hindrances to long-term life satisfaction. 16 The more we consume, acquire, and elevate our status, the harder it is to stay happy. Whether it’s money, grades, promotions, popularity, attention, or just plain material things we want, scientists agree: seeking out external rewards is a sure path to sabotaging our own happiness.
On the other hand, when we set out to make our own happiness, we’re focused on activity that generates intrinsic rewards—the positive emotions, personal strengths, and social connections that we build by engaging intensely with the world around us. We’re not looking for praise or payouts. The very act of what we’re doing, the enjoyment of being fully engaged, is enough.
The scientific term for this kind of self-motivated, self-rewarding activity is autotelic (from the Greek words for “self,” auto , and “goal,” telos ). 17 We do autotelic work because it engages us completely, and because intense engagement is the most pleasurable, satisfying, and meaningful emotional state we can experience.
As long as we are regularly immersed in self-rewarding hard work, we will be happy more often than not—no matter what else is going on in our lives. This is one of the earliest hypotheses of positive psychology, and a fairly radical idea. It contradicts what so many of us have been taught to believe—that we need life to be a certain way in order for us to be happy, and that the easier life is the happier we are. But the relationship between hard work, intrinsic reward, and lasting happiness has been verified and confirmed through hundreds of studies and experiments.
One well-known study conducted at the University of Rochester, published in 2009, neatly upturns one of the most common assumptions about how happiness works. Researchers tracked 150 recent college graduates for two years, monitoring their goals and reported happiness levels. They compared the rates at which the graduates achieved both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, with self-reported levels of well-being and life satisfaction. The researchers’ unequivocal conclusion: “The attainment of extrinsic, or ‘American Dream,’ goals—money, fame, and being considered physically attractive by others— does not contribute to happiness at all. ” In fact, they reported, far from creating well-being, achieving extrinsic rewards “actually does contribute to some ill-being.” If we let our desire for more and more extrinsic rewards monopolize our time and attention, it prevents us from engaging in autotelic activities that would actually increase our happiness.
On the other hand, in the same study the University of Rochester researchers found that individuals who focused on intrinsically rewarding activity, working hard to develop their personal strengths and build social relationships, for example, were measurably happier
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