Happiness & the law of diminishing returns

Something Keri emailed to me. What her email says...Just to share an interesting read...I find the last 2 statements particularly true. ~Cheers


I so want to be happy

Happiness doesn't last, and it is subjected to the law of diminishing returns.

I have been happy the past five weeks playing the role of yummy mummy to my niece and nephew visiting from the United States.

I took leave from work for three of those weeks and managed to fulfil every aspect of my motherhood fantasy.

There I was, tottering in my four-inch heels as I ushered them around town, to the malls, to the Singapore Flyer, Night Safari, Sentosa and Kallang ice-skating rink.

The kids - she's 10 and he's five - were gratifyingly cute.

('Aunty Shoes, I'm not an artist. You can't expect me to draw everything,' Josh said when I asked him if he could draw a picture of me. He prefers drawing army tanks and planes.

And when I asked him to fetch something for me, he looked at me sternly and declared: 'Aunty Shoes, this is not National Lazy Day.')

Two nights before they left, they came up with The Goodbye Show, a performance in six acts which the girl, Michiko, wrote.

Using the curtain of the balcony as a stage curtain, Act 1 had Josh starring in The Silly Show - he showed off his craziest monkey faces.

This was followed by poems about Singapore written and recited by the girl, a story about a dog they found wandering in the neighbourhood, more poems, and a song about their holiday here.

They were hilarious.

But me being a happy yummy mummy-aunty is just half the story.

The other half wasn't that pretty.

I had looked forward to their visit and had expected to be happy all those five weeks, but that wasn't to be.

There were stretches when being with the kids bored me to death, when their company made me feel plain fatigued, when I was irritated and angry with them, and when I wished I was back at work.

The first 20, 30, times they called me 'Aunty Shoes' - their nickname for me - was sweet. But when they started every sentence with it and when they kept badgering me to 'play' with them when I was busy, it got trying.

The first few times they threw a tantrum, I found that adorable and gave in to their every sulk. But when the bad behaviour was played out day after day, I had to fight the urge to scream at them.

I was both sad and relieved when they finally went home last Tuesday.

Their visit led me to several conclusions:

When a dream comes true, you don't always get the happiness you thought would come with it;

Happiness is not something you can feel every moment of the day;

Happiness comes in small doses, so just be grateful for that;

It's pointless to wish for a Big Happiness because it won't happen;

Perhaps happiness is overrated.

Like most people, everything I do, everything I hope for and everything I regret, hinges on the pursuit of personal happiness.

Wikipedia describes happiness as an emotion associated with feelings ranging from contentment and satisfaction to bliss and intense joy.

It is said that about 50 per cent of a person's happiness depends on his genes. A further 10 to 15 per cent comes from variables such as socio-economic status, marital status, health and income. The remaining reasons do not have a discernible cause.

I have certainly experienced contentment and satisfaction. I suspect I have felt bliss. I have never known intense joy.

I so yearn to be happy and I so want to be happier. The irony is that this hunger and search for happiness is perhaps the reason I often find myself unhappy.

I did a little survey recently and asked around: On a scale of one to 10 with 10 being the pinnacle of contentment, what would you rate your happiness level?

My mother gave herself an eight. My sister also said eight and added that she sometimes feels 'joy'. (Perhaps that is the privilege of being a parent; I wouldn't know.)

A friend gave herself an eight, then added wistfully that it couldn't be higher because she had done things in her life which she shouldn't have and so had to shoulder 'the burden of guilt'.

Another friend said he was an eight, but if a certain beloved person was back in his life, his rating would shoot to nine. A colleague said seven.

Me? It ranges from six to nine. It's six when I'm functioning in neutral gear and nine when everything I yearn for comes my way and life is good, scarily good.

The problem with happiness is this - it doesn't last, and it is subjected to the law of diminishing returns.

Some scientists believe that everyone has an innate happiness 'set point' to which he will invariably return to.

Good and bad events may move you from this set point for a while, but you can't permanently raise or lower your in-born happiness level - or so the theory goes.

What is clearer is that, like most things in life, happiness is subjected to the law of diminishing returns - to attain something you wish for does make you happy, but only up to a point. Beyond that, more and more of that thing adds less and less to your happiness.

I have an avocado shake example.

I love the avocado shake at Sanur restaurant. The rich, ambrosiac, green concoction really hits the spot for me.

Whenever I eat there, I'd order two glasses as one isn't enough. The problem is, while the first glass is so satisfying, finishing the second will make me want to puke.

It's a scenario that plays out in so many aspects of my life. Happiness is so hard to come by, yet when I do find it, it either doesn't last long, or it loses its magic after a while, and I'm back to being six on the happiness scale.

Still, one could argue that happiness would be meaningless if you felt happy all the time. How can you understand happiness unless you have lived through unhappiness and can compare the two?

The trick perhaps is to learn to live for the moment and appreciate what you have.

Like me, my niece Michiko is quite the wet blanket. Much of her holiday here was spent lamenting the past or worrying about the future.

She kept moaning about missing her friends, her cousins, her dog, her bed and even the airplane journey here. Or she'd be fretting about how she might not get a window seat on the way back or why her plane doesn't stop in Alaska.

At the airport before she left, she cried big fat tears because she'd miss us. She was a mess.

Josh, on the other hand, is of a more happy-go-lucky nature. He's been known to declare to his mother in the morning, 'This is going to be the greatest day.'

At the airport, while his sister sobbed, he made monkey faces at us and waved goodbye with gusto. He had been happy in Singapore and was now happy to go home.

I look at them and I know who has been born with a higher happiness set point, and who will probably have a happier life ahead.

It is hard to be happy when you are stuck in the past or the future.

It is hard to be happy when you chase after happiness, forgetting that, hey, it could well be right there, staring at you.

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on June 15, 2008.