One of my favorite bloggers Will Wilkinson pointed out these happiness advice from Csikszentmihalyi.
From a new Time article on Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s new grad program at CGU:
Drawing on his research on happiness, Csikszentmihalyi has three general pieces of advice:
* Be attuned to what gives you genuine satisfaction. Although many people assume that popular activities like watching TV are enjoyable, their own reports generally indicate that they feel more engaged, energetic, satisfied and happy when doing other things.
* Study yourself. To better understand their own happiness, Csikszentmihalyi says, people should systematically record their activities and feelings every few hours for a week or two. In recording your observations, try to focus on how you actually feel, rather than what you think you ought to be feeling or what you expect to feel. Afterwards, note the high points, particularly, and the low ones. Then try to adjust how you spend time according to your findings.
* Take control. Repairing unhappy conditions requires active effort. People often assume external conditions will change for the better or let chance determine their response. That’s a mistake. “Get control,” Csikszentmihalyi says. When things aren’t right, “you have to put in the same effort you would if your business were in trouble. Just as markets move, life changes too.”
Again: “unhappy conditions require active effort.” What if you happen to be writing a novel and just don’t have the time? Unhappiness isn’t that bad, really, if you’ve got something better to be working on.
More and more people seem to be concerning with happiness issues nowadays. And I know many people who think being happy is the major goal in life, if not the sole aim. For me, the secret to happiness is to strive a balance between the enjoyment of sensuous, transitory pleasures and the more lasting, sustaining ones such as achievements coming from hard works. So I think those who try to find ways to stay happy all the time or think happiness is the most important thing in life are likely to miss the point. This quote from my earlier entry comes to mind:
“Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness: on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.”
-John Stuart Mill
Or this advice by economist Greg Mankiw, “What I, like many parents, try to impress upon my children is that there is a vast difference between happiness and satisfaction, that a good life is more important than a happy one.”
Just an update on my life: I’ve enjoyed enough pleasant moments during my Easter break: travelled around London, bought 5 sets of classical CDs, and just being treated a nice, authentic Thai cuisine; it’s time to get back to strive for the more sustainable ones. And who says learning economics is not a pleasure in itself.
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