What Makes Us Happy in the Long Run?

I often hear dreams that go like this: make enough money to never work again, lie under a palm tree, retire young. In theory it sounds wonderful. But can any of it actually make us happy in practice?

A psychologist with a wonderful name — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the man behind the concept of “flow” — confirmed an idea through his research: happiness and life satisfaction come from immersing ourselves in an activity that is a challenge. The activity has to call on skills that match the level of the challenge — but not be so hard that it tips into anxiety or fear. The experience of flow is marked by deep absorption, losing track of time, and a feeling of satisfaction and happiness.

When was the last time you felt something like that?

A line came back to me: “We are only sent the trials we are able to overcome.” And with every challenge we get through, our skills grow.

Almost always, a challenge is just another word for a problem — and not necessarily in any negative sense. An unsolved equation, or a need for a product that handles certain tasks, are a kind of “problem” too.

So: happiness and life satisfaction come from solving ever harder problems that we are able to overcome.

What can we influence? The choice of which problems we solve. There’s a hierarchy of problems: from the lower order (finding food, say) to the higher (sending a human to Mars). By taking on — and successfully solving — problems of an ever higher order, we stay happy and full of energy for the whole of our lives. The challenges will never run out. And they shouldn’t!

Dr. Alexey Sitnikov points out that the longer the planning horizons of our goals, the higher our odds of longevity and mental health.

Of course, this whole framing of happiness is only one part of a much bigger picture. We’re not touching here on things like sleep, hormones, social ties, food, exercise and the rest.

So what are the widespread but false attributes of happiness?

— Tying happiness to some future event: “I’ll be happy when I buy a new car or an apartment, when I make X, when I find a partner” — when in fact happiness is here and now, in the flow of solving tasks.

— Buying things for pleasure, and status objects — a short-lived joy at best.

— An idle way of life.

— Prolonged doing-nothing.

Let’s be glad that we have our own “problems” to solve — glad of the process, and of its results!

Here’s to the pleasure of solving ever harder problems! 😎