These 3 Things Are What The Happiest People Prioritize
Social scientist Arthur C. Brooks, who teaches at Harvard University, has been searching for answers about what happiness really is and what it means for decades according to CNBC Make It. In this time he has found that there are three things the happiest people do.
1. Enjoyment
Brooks says that most people assume enjoyment is simply pleasure, which isn’t really accurate. He says that chasing purely pleasurable moments your entire life “is a terrible way to live a fulfilling life.”
You experience enjoyment by taking pleasure and adding memory and people. Brooks states: “If you’re doing something that’s pleasurable and can be addictive [and] you don’t do it alone, then you can get enjoyment which is a source of actual authentic and enduring happiness.”
Some things like reading a book or listening to music can be enjoyed alone, but Brooks suggests that you engage in social activities like going out to dinner with friends.
2. Satisfaction
Brooks defines satisfaction as “the joy, the reward, that you get after you struggle for something. We as humans, we need to struggle, we need to strive, we need to sacrifice, we even need pain in our lives, because that’s actually how we earn something.”
When you feel like something that you’ve gained is something that you worked for and actually earned it makes it more valuable to you. He uses an analogy to demonstrate this: “The reason people aren’t as happy as they should be is because they don’t enjoy their dinner,” Brooks says. “Because they’re never hungry.”
3. Purpose
Purpose is feeling like your life truly has a meaning according to Brooks. Out of the three things needed for happiness, the one you need to experience the most is purpose. There are three parts to meaning:
Coherence– Why do things happen this way?
Purpose– Why is my life happening this way? What are my goals?
Significance– Why does my existence matter?
According to Brooks there’s no true right answer to these questions and the only wrong answer is having no answer at all. If you have no answer to these questions Brooks says that “is not failure. It’s actually a really good outcome if you fail because you know what to start looking for.” Finding purpose takes work but it’s very important to think about.
