Concept
Happiness myths
Happiness myths are Sonja Lyubomirsky's name for two families of belief about the turning points of adult life: 'I'll be happy when…' (the right partner, job or income) and 'I can't be happy when…' (a break-up, a bad diagnosis, a lost dream). Both assume one event will settle happiness for good.
In The Myths of Happiness, published in 2013, Lyubomirsky does not claim that these events are unimportant. A good marriage, satisfying work and financial security matter, and a loss or a diagnosis really does hurt. What is mythical is the size and the duration of the effect we expect. Good events lift us for a while and then become normal through hedonic adaptation; bad events usually hurt less and for less long than we predict, although some losses can leave a lasting mark. The myth does damage in two directions: before an arrival it postpones wellbeing to the future, and after it, the fading lift is read as proof of a wrong choice. The useful response is not to give up the goal but to finish the sentence honestly: what will improve, for how long, and what will be kept going whatever happens.
A real-life example
A quality engineer at an automotive supplier in Kocaeli has said for years that she will relax once she is made manager. A month before the promotion she rewrites the sentence: 'Being manager will feel good for some months and then normal; what I want to protect meanwhile is Saturday breakfast with my mother.' When the promotion comes, she meets the fading lift as the usual course of things, not as a mistake.
How to use it
- 1Write down one 'I'll be happy when…' sentence you live by, and add honestly how long you expect the lift to last.
- 2Write down one 'I can't be happy when…' sentence you fear, and next to it note the rest of life that would go on around that event.
- 3When an arrival feels flat, consider adaptation before you doubt the choice you made.