Stop Pursuing Happiness

Not too long ago, after a couple beers at the bar with a fellow patron, I brought up this familiar phrase, "The pursuit of happiness". Almost immediately, the gentleman I was sharing this conversation with myth-busted the happiness pursuit idea, and told me something that has stuck with me ever since:

"Sadness is just as important as happiness, and perhaps even more important. To me, life isn't about the pursuit of happiness. It's about the pursuit of experience."

He's right. I think the pursuit of happiness is a cheap trick. What about sadness, and all other emotions in between? Not to say that you should pursue sadness, but to choose only happiness - out the entire spectrum of emotion that we humans can experience - as the end-all-be-all in terms of life fulfillment, is stupid. I mean, how would you even know what happiness is, without taking the time to know sadness?

We're human. The fact that we can feel anything at all is a gift. Even if a feeling seems negative at the time, don't ignore it just because it isn't the feeling that you're after. Explore it. Appreciate it. Learn from it.

So, since I don't have a couple beers in me at this time, I'd like to improvise a bit on the thought that my fellow patron originally shared:

Pursue experiences that make you feel something, embrace and explore that something (even if it isn't happiness), and adjust your pursuits accordingly. 

Asking the Right Question

"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special." - Stephen Hawking

How does the universe work?

The smartest people in the world have been working on this question for centuries. Some say we've made progress, though I'm not so sure. See, when it comes to big questions like this, there are many factors to consider before even attempting to come up with an answer.

First of all, in order to come up with an answer for something, you have to know what you're asking. More on that later.

Another important factor to consider when approaching a big question is the method by which you plan to answer it. With a complex problem such as the mystery of the universe, you’re not going to get very far in solving it unless you have some sort of system; some sort of organized method by which you can track your progress and begin to comprehend this complex subject that you are choosing to explore. 

A system is also important because it will help you not only organize and understand things for yourself, but it will help others understand as well. In helping others understand your way of thinking and your system, you can then start to build credibility, and perhaps community, around it. This brings us to yet another factor to consider: belief.

Any progress we’ve ever made in understanding things, like the true nature of the universe, is built upon a belief system. Religion, philosophy, spirituality, science, astrology, politics.  These are all belief systems. Some systems use sense. Some use logic. Some use a little bit of both. Regardless, they all help establish a general consensus about things, and help keep us in check when we go off to explore the big stuff.

So, if you have a big question, there may already be an established belief system in place that can help you answer it. If not, you could always form your own belief system. Ah. Yet again, we’ve arrived at another - and perhaps the most significant - factor to consider when approaching any big question: you.

The universe is everything. You, a human, act merely as part of it - an origin point from which you can observe the universe - everything - around you. And not only can you observe it, you also have the ability to perceive it however you see fit. This ability forms your own, personal perspective about the nature of the universe and your place as part of it. It is your consciousness, and it is responsible for any question that you have ever asked.

So, back to my first point about knowing what you're asking - do the smartest people in the world want to know how the universe works? Or, do they want to know how the universe works as it relates to their own human experience of it? Logic or sense?

Who are you?

The Moment or the Memory?

“Odd as it may seem, I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.” ― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

What's more significant: the moment itself, or the memory you have of it?

Nobel Prize winner and psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, who has been widely recognized for his work in developing Prospect theory, presents an interesting perspective on the relationship between the experiencing self and the remembering self. As you can probably deduce, the experiencing self describes the version of you who is present during life's moments as they happen, while the remembering self is the version of you who reflects upon these moments, which would then exist as memories.

Consider Daniel Kahneman's example of a one-week vacation vs. a two-week vacation. To the experiencing self, assuming that the second week was just as good as the first, a two-week vacation would seem to be twice as good as a one-week vacation, right?

However, when asking the remembering self to compare these two scenarios and determine which is better, the factor of "time spent" seems to play much less of a role. According to Daniel Kahneman, the factors that are actually in play here, as with any memory, are the changes, the significant events and the ending. These are the elements that make up our memories, and determine how we feel when we reflect upon them. So in this sense, in terms of its contribution to overall happiness, the one-week vacation suddenly seems just as good as the two-week vacation, and perhaps more practical.

"Inspired by true events" is a preface you'll often see at the beginning of a movie or book. But this preface is just as appropriate for each and every memory we've stored. When we recall one of these memories, we are not reliving the experience as it happened, but rather assessing the critical moments within the experience, and building a compelling story around the overall sentiment that these moments produced. The remembering self is the storyteller, while the experiencing self is just one of the characters within the story.

So, what's more significant: the moment itself, or the memory you have of it?