Sometimes we struggle to discover the answers to strange questions regarding happiness. Here are their in-depth explanations.

 

Introduction:

                              We have seen many different definitions of happiness on the internet where people say “if you help others you get happy”, “If you deal with negative thoughts you become happy”, and “If you achieve your goals you become happy”. But here is the question that comes to my mind every time I listen to happiness talks. Where does true happiness exist? Why do we feel happy when we help others? Why does our success make us happy and failures make us sad? and why do people say that money can't give you happiness? I know these questions are kind of weird. I believe they may also cross your mind so, sharing these questions with you will be a good idea. And happily, I have discovered their answers.

                         So, let’s first start with what is happiness.

Happiness:

                              “Joy, satisfaction, contentment, and a sense of completion are all emotional characteristics of happiness. Although there are many distinct definitions of happiness, it is frequently said to involve joyful feelings and a sense of fulfillment in one's life.”

                        So, from this definition, you get to know that happiness is an emotional state in which we feel joyful and satisfied. As we are now familiar with what happiness is, let’s move on to my questions about happiness.

Where does true happiness exist?

                          True happiness exists in the transition that we made by distracting ourselves from the state of stress, sadness, or other hurting emotions. To me, happiness really exists when we leave the state of sadness. Okay, this might seem new and odd to you. But wait let me explain!

                        Let’s say you are sad because you failed in one of your subjects at the university and are sitting alone with your failure. And for sure you are not happy at this stage. But what if you convince yourself of the mistakes you make in studying the subject or what if you cheer yourself up to study even harder this year to pass in that subject? Now if you don’t have any other problems then by helping yourself in leaving the state of sadness, you feel happy and relaxed because now you have left the state of sadness and transitioned from being sad to being happy.

                       Let’s take another example for better understanding. We all love music and whenever we are sad we listen to music and it really calms us down and makes us happy. Suppose you are upset because of your friend's rudeness which he/she showed you at a public event which causes you sadness. You are now tired of being sad and you want to escape from that situation and be happy. How would you do that? By listening to good music you can make yourself happy. But how does this work? In this example also you are actually transitioning from the state of being sad to the state of being happy by listening to good music.

                         Hope so, now you have understood where happiness actually exists. It exists when you leave a discomforting situation and distract yourself from sadness or any other sad emotion.

Why does helping others make us happy?

                            I have studied in Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking fast and slow” that if our mind is engaged in an effortful task, the glucose level in our body drops. And after that, we find it hard to perform other tasks until the consumption of glucose again. Helping others is also an effortful task because sometimes we have to solve a problem for someone in which we have to use our brains. After all, problem-solving is difficult.

                     So, how would something which drains our energy gives us happiness? I discussed it with some of my friends but they replied that it's a fact that helping others makes us happy. There is no specific reason why. All you have to know is that by helping others you will feel happy and you should do this. But my question is the same: if I don't know why this thing is advantageous, how would I do this with confusion? So, I figured it out by myself and I found the answer.

                     Our brains are positively affected by helping others in a variety of ways. Our brains release oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine when we assist others. These hormones improve our mood and mitigate the negative effects of cortisol (the stress hormone). According to research, helping others causes the same kind of brain activity as receiving a reward. But why does this happen?

                      According to my perspective, this happens because when we help others we actually feel the joy which in that case we will feel as if someone helped us. Giving others something makes us happy because that situation gives us a beautiful state of joy which we would experience if we were in that situation. Let’s say that someone didn’t help you in your hour of need and now you helped someone else in their hour of need, it makes you happy because it is giving you the same feeling of gratitude that you will receive if someone helped you in your problem. In this way helping others makes us happy.

Why do we feel happy when we win and sad when we lose or get defeated 😕?

                        When the pleasure or excitement we expected to experience from winning doesn't materialize (in the event of failure), we get depressed.

And when we win, we experience that pleasure and are joyful because the reward we had expected for winning has now materialized.

                        It all depends on the type of outcomes we expect from our hard work or from our accomplishments. When we put a lot of effort into something and have high hopes for how wonderful it will turn out, we are obviously disappointed when it doesn't work out. However, when we have low hopes for it and it fails, it doesn't bother us as much because we didn't foresee getting as much joy from it.

                        And if something goes unexpectedly well then obviously it will give us great joy and happiness (like the unexpected gift you get on our birthday).

Is wealth a factor in happiness?

                           The possession of a certain thing by a person may not matter to him, but this does not imply that it is unimportant to others. Finally, what you possess is unimportant to you but it is significant to those who lack it.

                         Money is not a factor in the happiness of those who have enough money to cover their basic necessities because they already have it. But for some who lack the resources to cover their everyday expenses, money is a cause of their happiness. If we have enough money to fulfill our daily needs then we should never say that money isn't necessary to be happy because we haven't felt the suffering of someone who didn't have enough money to meet their daily needs.

                       And also if someone is smiling it doesn’t mean he or she is happy. Happiness doesn’t show on the face, it's an internal feeling. 

Why do frequent changes make us happy?

                           New things make you happy, and changes make you happy. If your life is going so smoothly like no new change, no new problem, no new person then how would you feel happy? Because happiness occurs there where we transition from a state of discomfort to a state of being comfortable or a state of joy.

                        So, changes are significant for happiness. If life is going so smoothly (which is not the case every time) then how would we feel different emotions? The feelings of sadness, stress, and other problems can actually make us realize the importance of real happiness. If we are continuously feeling the same thing whether it's pain or happiness it doesn’t make us feel that way as we feel it in the initial state.

                       The same is the pain case, if we are continuously feeling the pain then at a certain time we are going to feel it like normal because we get used to it.