What follows is the part 1 of our article on becoming happier. It is a 4~5 minute read where we state our intention for writing the article, seek to define happiness, and explore how one can be happy in the modern world. Part 2, which will release in a few days, will explore specific methods and conditions of happiness and how they can be practically implemented in real life.

Intentions

How does one become happier? How does one maintain consistent happiness in such a tumultuous world? Is it even possible, with the relentless competition and omnipresent stressors of modern life, to be happy? With the increasing prevalence of neuroses and psychoses in all demographics, these questions have never been more relevant.

Although the individualistic philosophy of the modern western world has brought mental health into the public consciousness, it has also generated a great mass of misconceptions that has, tragically, arisen mostly out of good intentions.

This churning sea of divergent beliefs can prove overwhelming to navigate, especially to those who are already afflicted by neuroses and psychoses, in the forms of depression, anxiety, PTSD etc. Attempts at navigating the internet for sage advice on life can often result in disappointment, as one’s vision is beclouded by pages upon pages of brightly decorated, but ultimately, insubstantial, articles written by paid writers who seemed to have amputated misshapen pieces of instagram posts and stuck them together in the roughest approximation of an essay.

I say this at the risk of appearing conceited, for this article may appear at first glance to be no different. But I wrote the following with the sole intent of sharing my personal experience, with emphasis on the parts of my journey which I believe can be easily replicated. This is not the panacea of life, the one true secret of happiness—for such a thing does not exist—but is rather just one individual’s humble perspective on the subject.

I am no mental health expert. The ideas which I will cover in this article are not the fruits of my rumination, but the findings of the leading scholars in the field. The likes of Martin Seligmann, A.H. Maslow, Carol Dweck, Ellen Langer, and of course, Tal Ben-Shahar.* Professors, academics, and psychologists who have made incredible discoveries in a nascent field of psychology aptly coined “positive psychology”, and to whose work the vast majority of people remain tragically ignorant.

These findings are backed up by the most rigorous form of research and have been consistently shown to be highly successful. I myself have found incredible success in applying some of these principles in life—a feeling resonated by many young people with whom I have since begun to work with on matters of mental health. I therefore share them with you here, acting only as the medium of knowledge, the mouthpiece of experts.

*to reduce the size of this article down to an appetising length, I will not be referring to them every time I bring up one of their ideas. This entire article is essentially just a broad summary of their work.

Understanding Happiness

To tackle the issue of mental health, we must begin by establishing a few key concepts. The first of which is the nature of happiness. What is happiness? Why should one pursue it? English as a language has many characteristics, prime among which is the fact that few people know the exact roots of each word, and so meaning can be very easily distorted by the white noise of contemporary discourse. So let us look at a figurative language for clues. The Chinese word for happiness which is used in most contexts is “开心”, literally, open-mindedness. This aligns almost perfectly with the definition of psychologists, who trace positive and negative emotions back to our ancestral roots as organisms striving for survival.

Negative emotions, such as anxiety, anger, and fear, arise in moments of crisis, whereby life and death is determined by one’s success in performing certain tasks, such as fleeing from a hungry lion. In moments such as these, natural selection has endowed the brain with the instinct of narrowing and constricting, eliminating all distractions so one can focus solely on the task at hand, i.e. running away from the lion.

Unfortunately, the relics of our rise to civilisation have become the stigmata of our fall in modern times. Because the human brain has developed into the most powerful simulator known to man, in the absence of real, tangible physical threats, we can very easily turn minor setbacks into disproportionate menaces. A prime, albeit hyperbolised, example of this appears in Samuel Beckett’s absurdist stage play “Waiting for Godot”, whereby within the opening few lines of the script one of the protagonists delves into existential questioning over being unable to remove his shoe. 

Whilst the effects of constrictive clothing may not be so severe for many of us, we often still experience the same escalation of anxiety or stress even when faced with what objectively, and retrospectively, could be perceived as mundane problems. This leads to the instinctive narrowing and constricting of our brains, creating a warped perception of reality.

And since imaginary threats are not always certain to disappear on its own, like a pursuing lion, the brain continuously narrows and constricts, believing itself to be in ever greater danger, until a negative feedback loop is created and reinforced, preventing one from perceiving the positives and leading to fixation on the negative.

This is the crudest explanation of the cognitive mechanisms behind depression and anxiety, but for the purposes of this article, it should be sufficient in illustrating the nature of negative thoughts.

Positive emotions, on the other hand, such as joy, excitement, arousal, and pride, arise in moments of leisure, whereby the body need not respond to any imminent threats. This means that the brain is free to dedicate resources to the forging of new neural pathways, learning new skills, hence adopting an open mindset. Happiness essentially describes this state of mind. For, happiness is not an emotion, but a perspective through which we perceive the world.

When we are happy and experience positive emotions, we can often see events for what they are instead of blowing them out of proportion through sheer force of imagination. This is the open-mindedness which is described in both the Chinese language and most academic articles.

How To Become Happier

Fortunately, in the modern world, where most of us enjoy the privilege of facing no imminent threats to our lives, happiness is actually much easier to achieve than it might have been for our ancestors. The world of 2023 is such a wonderful and positive place. Behind the red facade of conflict and terror are millions of happy families, dutiful parents and grateful children, loving wives and loyal husbands, inspiring youths and wise elders. There is so much beauty and hope everywhere around us. For those of us living in normal circumstances, all that we need to be happy is to shift our perspectives and be rational in our evaluation of the world around us. To be happy is to view reality as it is, to be sad is to warp reality with fantasy.

It is also important to understand that happiness, or any such mental phenomena, are not purely “mental”. The mind and the body have been shown to be linked far more intimately than most believe. Negative emotions almost always find physical expression. This varies between individuals, but common symptoms are: tightness in the chest, knot in the guts, dryness in the throat, and irrational agitation. The same applies to positive emotions. We feel lighter, our chests swell, our heart beats faster, and we appear more physically attractive.

These symptoms aren’t imaginary. The body is actively changing its physiology to match our mindset. The mind is linked to the body, and vice versa. This is why illness usually results in negative emotions, and negative emotions have been proven to be associated with weakening the immune system. Exercise and decisive action, on the other hand, can drastically improve one’s level of happiness, and overwhelmingly positive experiences can permanently alter one’s mindset.

This fundamental understanding of happiness leads inevitably to one’s appreciation for our capacity to change. The mind is just as malleable as our body. Research has shown that neural plasticity remains extremely high even after reaching adulthood, and, more crucially, that it can be cultivated manually.