This book by Jonathan Haidt takes ancient pearls of wisdom and validates against modern psychology to find common ground.
Happiness equation: H= S+C+V
H= Happiness experience
S =Biological set point you get from your parents.
C = Conditions of your life ( Work and Love Conditions).
V = Voluntary activities
S =Biological set point you get from your parents. This can be changed in three ways:
1. Meditation (focus on breath) 2. Cognitive behavioral therapy (catch your thoughts and label distortions such as personalization, over generalizations and magnifications on a daily basis) 3. Prozac (it helps by increasing serotonin and growing Hippocampus )
Your set point also determines you being extrovert or introvert. When adversity strikes do we go into PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) or PTSG ( Post traumatic growth) is dependent on your set point. When faced with adversity people use following methods to cope with it:
1: Active coping. Taking direct action to fix the problem.
2: Reappraisal: Getting ones own thoughts right. Working within.
3: Avoidance coping: Working to blunt emotions by drinking, doing drugs, avoiding events and other distractions.
Optimists will toggle between active coping and reappraisal developing a positive story of what they learned. Optimists also share the story with the in-depth wisdom of lessons learned which improves their health (Freud Catharsis in work). These actions of optimists will lead to Post traumatic stress Growth. This might have lead to the quote “ What does not kill you will make you stronger ”.
Pessimists take avoidance coping along with the active coping but develop a story, how the world is unfair. These activities of pessimists will lead to post traumatic stress disorder requiring therapy.
For kids it was found trauma /adversity shouldn’t strike at early age but exposing them adversity is good from teenage to early adulthood The wise always see things from others point of view, appreciate shades of gray. The degree of adversity should not be so strong to cause PTSD.
C = Conditions of your life ( Work and Love Conditions).
The work conditions should have “flow”. Please refer to summary of “flow” published earlier.
Right relationships between yourself and others and between yourself and something larger than yourself are key for improving Love.
Relationships/ Love summaries from the book are:
When we are in conflict with others, we find inner lawyer who is an hypocrite, arguing we are completely right and the other person is completely wrong. Contemplating and finding our contribution to conflict is the key to saving relationships. Writing our thoughts and looking at “should“ statements in our mind is the cognitive therapy that works in reducing our victim attitude. This helps in reducing our anger and increases our happiness.
Reciprocating,tit for tat, are properties of the subconscious. We can use this tendency of subconscious effectively to improve Love and reduce conflicts.
Even though passionate love is dominant in the initial phase of relationship, companionate love dominates next 80% of time. Love always conquers fear. To grow up healthy and independent, kids need hugs, holds and love. Once we give secure base to kids,they will explore and conquer the world. The Oxytocin produced during child birth does that attachment for Mom.
Durkheim gathered data on suicides across Europe and found that people who have fewer social constraints, bonds and obligations were more likely to kill themselves. Strong social relationships will predict your happiness. We need attachments and relationships as Jean Paul said, “Hell is other people“, but so is heaven.
V = Voluntary activities (acceptance of conditions you cannot change and weakening our attachment to certain external conditions, Virtues/Morality and God/Divinity/Religion are key).
Virtues/Morality Link to happiness-
As the USA becomes more diverse the authoritarian method of teaching moral values in school was removed. The morals were left to individual thinking. The author argues that it is like asking each kid to come up with own language. Positive Psychology father Martin Seligman along with other Psychologists went through holy books of major religions and came up with common traits. They published a list of 6 virtues as well as 24 specific ways indicated in parentheses to get there.
- Wisdom (Curiosity, Love of learning, Judgement, Ingenuity, Emotional intelligence and perspective)
- Courage (Valor, Perseverance, and Integrity)
- Humanity (Kindness and Loving)
- Justice (Citizenship, Fairness, and Leadership)
- Temperance (Self-control, Prudence, and Humility)
- Transcendence (Appreciation of beauty and excellence, Gratitude, Hope, Spirituality, Forgiveness, Humor, and Zest)
When people are virtuous, it adds depth and greater meaning to the life ultimately leading to happiness.
God/Divinity and Psychology:
Psychologists studied peak religious experiences of people and found commonality. The consistent theme of the experiences is feelings of unity with universe, transcendence of Space and time, joy, ecstasy, fear and awe. People generally have difficulty in putting that experience into words.
The author mentions the same experience quoted in Gita by Arjuna after Krishna gave the third eye and showed Viswaroopa. Psychology is neutral on a theme of god,but agrees with peak religious experiences. The author mentions same experiences are reported from people taking LSD.
He argues feeling of “self” that is experienced by humans gets destroyed when we believe larger force than us. This might be the root cause of Peak happiness experiences of religious people which is also achieved by LSD. There are two spots in Parietal lobes in brain which manage boundaries of our body and our body’s relative space in universe. When we chant or work in unison, these spots are turned off which gives a peak experience as we loose our boundaries and space.
The author argues that Buddha’s theory that happiness should always come within , along with detachment from external conditions may be correct in the context of his times . Happiness comes from within as well as some external conditions (no need to detach completely) is the central theme.
The author also explains Krishna’s theory of Maya. In one sense, the “things” are real( e.g buildings, Chairs etc.,) but thoughts, perceptions are just an illusion which exist in mind. Being aware of this Maya is critical for freeing yourself.
Author does not present material in coherent manner.
Rating 3 out of 5 ⭐️
