Happiness v Meaning

 

I think it would be fair to say that everyone wants to be happy.  It therefore makes sense to pursue this goal through doing things that make us feel happy in the moment.  Or so you would think.

In psychology, there are two popular conceptions of happiness: hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic happiness is achieved through avoiding discomfort and pursuing pleasure and enjoyment, while eudaimonic happiness is achieved through experiences of meaning and purpose.  Both play an important role in overall happiness.  Yet pursuing happiness for its own sake does not lead to a happier life.

In 2010, Psychologists Veronika Huta and Richard M. Ryan produced a piece of academic research entitles ‘Pursuing Pleasure or Virtue: The Differential and Overlapping Well-Being Benefits of Hedonic and Eudaimonic Motives’.  In this study they split participants into two groups.  They instructed the first group to do a daily activity that gave them pleasure.  They instructed the second to do an activity that they found meaningful.  After ten days the happiness group, who had undertaken activities such as sleeping in, eating sweets and shopping experienced the highest levels of happiness, but three months later the effects had waned.  The meaning group, who had pursued activities such as building relationships, helping others, or learning new skills, were continuing to experience greater levels of joy, wellbeing, and inspiration three months later.

Instant gratification has its place, but if we want to live a happier life, we must pursue things that have meaning for us.  This means that we must first find out what gives us meaning.  Its sounds obvious, yet it requires a level of paying attention to our deepest desires that few people take the time to do.  We are bombarded by messages, normally from those that wish to sell us something, telling us what we need to make us happy.  But to truly uncover this we must go within and get in touch with who we are and what is important to us at the most fundamental level, and to hold an awareness of who we want to be and the life we want to create.

This is important to do because the things we truly want don’t always gratify us in the moment.  For example, relationships are important to me; they fulfil me and make me feel connected and supported.  Yet sometimes I would rather suit myself than make the effort to nurture an important relationship in the moment.  I’m not suggesting that good relationships require that we never taking time for ourselves or express our boundaries.  Simply that choices that build fulfilling relationships such as taking the time to listen when we are busy, working through a conflict or fulfilling a social commitment when we feel tired, don’t always gratify us in the moment.

As a former hospice Chaplain, I have had many conversations with people coming towards the end of their life.  It is very normal at this stage to spend time looking back to find meaning in our lives.  Such things are not memories of instant gratification.  They are things that have required thought and intentionality.  Acts of service, learning, relationships, and the pursuit of meaningful goals.

I encourage you to picture yourself at the end of your own life and ask yourself ‘what do you want to look back and see?’.  Then turn off the TV, put the crisps away and go and go and make a start.

Decluttering: Creating space for a simple and meaningful life.

 

I have been thinking for a while about creating a more minimalist lifestyle.  Why?  Because I want to give my time and energy to the things that matter most to me.

I’ve discovered that desiring this isn’t enough.  There is so much competition for my time and energy, that if I don’t reduce things that matter less to me, they will always take precedence over things that matter most, for like toddlers they have a way of demanding my attention.

Inspired by watching The Minimalists documentary on Netflix, I decided to start with decluttering my house.  I thought this would be an easy win for me as I am not a particularly messy person.  I was also recognising a level of psychological stress that was caused by the endless management of possessions.  Every time I needed something from the garage, I had to spend time searching for it, shifting endless items around to find it.  Often, I avoided the frustration by just purchasing another one, only for it to turn up later.  More stuff to add to the pile.  The amount of time I spent cleaning, organising, and maintaining my stuff, or worse, thinking about the fact that I ought to, was time I wanted to spend differently.

Everything has a price that we continue to pay long after the money has left our account.

Everything has a price that we continue to pay long after the money has left our account.

This weekend I went all in.  Room by room, drawer by drawer.  Emptying everything out and only putting back items that brought value to my life.  I asked myself the following questions:

    • Have I used this in the past 6 months?  Will I use this in the next 6 months?
    • Does this serve a purpose in my actual life, as opposed to my past life or an idealised life!
    • Do I like it?  Does it bring me joy?

I was shocked by what I discovered.  Crockery for entertaining large groups that I have moved from house to house for nearly 30 years. I had stored, organised and cleaned it but rarely, if ever, used it.  In my mind I was a hostess, not because I like hosting. I don’t. Nor because I am particularly good at it. I’m not. But because I was raised in a family that always hosted and believed that this was something I “should” do.

I found a drawer stuffed full of all sorts of gift-wrapping paraphilia and crafting materials.  I loved the idea of wrapping beautiful gifts and making cards on a rainy afternoon.  I have never done either. This is not me; it is an idealised version of me I occasionally indulge.

As I emptied my bookshelves, it felt like peeling back the layers off my past life.  Books for a degree I did over a decade ago and have never opened since; who was I trying to impress? the dinner guests I haven’t invited on my homemade gift cards?  Books about religion that no longer fit my current spirituality.  Books about raising children that have long since flown the nest.  All valuable seasons of my life, but no longer relevant to my life today.

This level of decluttering was emotionally challenging and revealing.  I hadn’t thought of myself as being particularly attached to things, but parting with some of them felt like losing a familiar part of myself.  An identity formed from things is not something I want to hold on to, so the pile grew.   I was surprised to experience a low level anxiety when parting with items I had no use for.   I had spent my hard-earned money on these things and invested time in their upkeep.  Letting them go felt like a waste.  I had to admit to myself that I wasted my money when I made an impulse purchase, and keeping hold of it would not change that. 

At the same time, something strange and magical happened.  As I emptied, reduced and decluttered I felt a weight lift from me.  A shedding a life I have lived and a person I have been.  A way of life that once served me but had overstayed its usefulness and become a burden I carried from home to home, room to room.   I felt a sense of inner peace reflected by my surroundings.   As I stood back and observed my uncluttered shelves and empty surfaces I saw a blank canvas on which I could paint a life of my choosing.