PESSIMISM ABOUT PURSUING HAPPINESS

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1. to call this the million dollar question, but with inflation, it has become
the billion
2. dollar question.
3. Is it possible to become happier? And if it is possible to become happier, is it
possible
4. to sustain it?
5. up to now, there has been quite a bit of pessimism in the scientific world
about whether you
6. can even become happier, whether it's even possible to become happier.
So, I am going
7. to start off by being a sort of, devil's advocate and talk about, well, what are
some of the
8. reasons that maybe we should believe that it's not possible for us to sort of,
sustain
9. a higher level of happiness. So, three reasons to be pessimistic: and the first
is that
10. there's growing literature that we are all born with what's called a, a "set
point" for
11. happiness, that part of happiness is genetically determined. And this is work
that comes from
12. the field of behaviour genetics, and it shows that identical twins are much,
much more similar
13. in their happiness levels, than are fraternal twins. So, this suggests that
happiness is
14. heritable; it is passed down through our families, and so, a large portion,
about fifty percent
15. (50%) of happiness is genetically determined. And so, that leads some
researchers to conclude
16. that maybe it is futile, or kind of not very worthwhile to try to change our
happiness
17. levels, because it's partly genetic. And we'll get back to that.
18. Okay, a second reason to be pessimistic is that happiness has been shown
to be a trait-
19. it's an intrinsic part of our personality. And we know that personality does
not change
20. much over time. I mean, it can change, but it is very hard to change, right.
For those
21. of us who have tried to change our spouses, or our friends, we know how
hard it is. Happiness
22. is especially, very highly related to two core aspects of personality which are
extroversion,
23. being a sociable extroverted person, and neuroticism, being neurotic and
emotionally unstable person.
24. And so, if happiness is part of our personality, how can we really change it?
Studies have
25. shown that happiness is quite stable across people's lives, so, people who
are unhappy
26. when they are younger tend to, sort of, be unhappy, as they are older.
27. And the final reason to be pessimistic and something that I am particularly
interested
28. in right now, something I am doing research on is a phenomenon called
"hedonic adaptation."
29. And what it shows is that human beings are remarkably adept at getting
used to any positive
30. changes in their lives. So, we move into a beautiful new house, we buy a
new car, we
31. get a new job- and at first it is really thrilling, it gives us a happiness boost,
but over time
32. we get used to that and no matter what kinds of ups or downs in life we
have, we sort of,
33. tend to go back to our baseline. And there is a famous study that was done
in Germany
34. following twenty-five thousand (25,000) people living in Germany, before
they got married,
35. when they got married, and after they got married and looking at their
happiness over
36. time. What it showed is that people got a boost in happiness when they got
married,
37. actually the highest level was in the year before the wedding, kind of like the
engagement;
38. the honeymoon period. And how long do you think, and then people ended
up on average
39. getting back to their baseline. Now how long do you think it took for people
on average
40. to get back to their baseline, after getting married? Ten years, right after the
wedding?
41. Okay, one day? Anyone else? Three what? One year, six weeks? I think the
answers are telling
42. me a lot more about you guys: two years. Two years; now that's an average
so, actually,
43. what I am really interested in is what about those people who got happier  
44. when they got
45. married, and stayed happier, for years and years, above their baseline?
Some people actually
46. got less happy after marriage than they were before. So, anyway, hedonic
adaptation is
47. a phenomenon that we get used to really quickly the changes in our lives.
And so, if that's
48. the case, no matter what positive, thrilling, wonderful events happen to us,
we won't be
49. happier because we just get used to it and we just want more; we go back
down to our
50. baseline. So, those are three reasons to be pessimistic.