Can Happiness Be Understood?

Academic psychology used to refrain from exploring happiness as it was considered a kind of an experience that could not be objectified. Now, as it is strongly believed that happiness can be measured with sufficient accuracy after all, the tide has changed and data sweeps the beaches of all lands. With the exception of some data looking like Einstein equations, this is a good thing.

However, the newly found confidence is easily shaken when scientists are confronted with questions like these: "Can we really ever understand happiness? As happiness is such an individual experience and as fleeting as a rainbow, can we or should we even try to draw conclusions for the many?" This and similar lines of questions are based in two misunderstandings.

Firstly, it is not happiness that is different from person to person, but that which makes a person happy. Happiness is like sex: while it varies as to what it takes, there is great commonality in the way it feels. Most of us simply confuse the cause with the effect. One person likes hiking in the mountains, another a good conversation, another music and yet another meditation. All feel themselves part of life by losing their self-interest and immersing themselves completely.

The second misunderstanding is due to the thinking that happiness is like sex namely a single, isolated, pleasurable experience. If happiness was pleasure, we would not need the word happiness. Instead, happiness is more like a state of mind. As such it is possible to maintain happiness even when a fleeting experience is negative. In summary, happiness can be understood because it is more or less the same for every one and it is an enduring state of mind that can be tracked much better than the more transient moments of pleasure.