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Can You Ever Be Happy? The Answer Might Surprise You.

For the next few minutes, I'm going to play doctor, though I'm not one. We've got good news and bad news. Do you want to start with the bad news first? I hope so, because that is what we are going to do. The bad news is you may be predisposed to unhappiness. I just want you to take a second to let that sink in. Maybe its your parents, or their parents, but you were born a certain way and that may be causing these symptoms of unhappiness. It's natural and not your fault, but you may still be feeling it. 

Oh, the good news. Right. The good news is, there are things you can do to change that baseline level of happiness, or unhappiness, you were born with. In fact, while around 50% of your level of happiness can be predicted by your genetics, the other 50% is, at least partially, in your control. That's good right? Well, let's take a look at the different factors of happiness to give you a deeper understanding of how you can best improve your levels of happiness.

So, with the bad news first, 50% of your happiness is genetically dictated. Unfortunately, you can't do much about this. If you and your neighbor have the same job, the same house, the same friends, pretty much the same life, your levels of happiness may still vary wildly. This is all up to the way your body and brain works, and is the baseline you are stuck with. If you are lucky, you are set pretty high on the happiness scale. If you are unlucky, you tie with Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. It is good to have an idea of your baseline happiness, but it also doesn't help to dwell on. You may be generally unhappy due to genetics, but don't worry. There is still 50% of your happiness left to explore.

The next factor in your happiness is your life situation. How much money you make, how big your house or apartment is, how nice your car is, all these things must make up a big part of happiness right? After all, you've never seen anyone frown on a jet-ski. Well, this is going to be a bit of a let down, but your current circumstances only account for about 10% of your happiness. Whether you live in a 300 sqft apartment or a 30,000 sqft mansion, your level of happiness will only jump a little bit even if you have everything you could ever dream of. One of the reasons for this, is that you get used to your surroundings pretty quickly. If you've ever seen an episode of Hoarders, you may be familiar with one person being used to an awful situation because they've lived in it for so long. As soon as someone else comes in and sees the stash, they experience it for the first time and are blown away by it. The ability for a hoarder to habituate to an unlivable situation is the same ability we have for life style creep to rob us of happiness. If you get a raise, you may be happy for a week or two, but you get used to the increased income and it no longer brings you the same level of happiness. You drop back down to your baseline. You may be happy with your new car for a few weeks or months, but at some point it stops being the 'new car' and just becomes the 'car'. We get used to things that were considered luxuries and the sparkle they brought into our lives fades away. So, no matter how much we have or how good life is, only 10% of our happiness is tied to what we own, or how we live.

So, 50% of our happiness is genetic, 10% comes from our life's circumstances, what is the other 40%? The remaining 40% is what is in your control, the way you think about and interact with the world. This is the good news, that if you are unhappy, there are specific behaviors you can adopt in your daily life to quickly improve your mood and make yourself a happier person. I'll do most of my future writing on the specifics of this, but I'm sure you've gotten the advise all your life. 'Don't sweat the small stuff,' 'count your blessings,' 'keep your eyes on your own work' and other cliches are so common place you may already be sick of hearing them. If you proactively work this folk advice into your every day behaviors, though, you will find the kernel of truth that was hiding in them all along. If you do these things, you will be happier. No ifs, ands, or buts.

So yes, you can be happy, in spite of your luck with genetic roulette. Some factors in happiness are out of your control, some factors are very difficult to change, and the factors you should focus on are neither of those. 40% of your happiness is easily within your grasp, if you only do the right things. So, as your imaginary doctor today, I am going to give you two prescriptions. One, go take the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire here. Two, let us know in the comments if you think your baseline is high or low and what cliches you've heard that you think relate to happiness.

Have a wonderful day,

Matt

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