Happiness isn't the destination

by Mervin Straughan
April 2021

However perplexing it might sound, happiness isn’t a destination.

Many people assume that happiness should always be what we strive for. This is incorrect for two reasons.

1) If it were the goal, it's most likely that we would take the easy route and miss out on anything that challenges us. Yet, challenges are what help us to grow and learn.

2) We risk seeing it as a far-off destination that's always close yet far. Better for our wellbeing to cherish what we have at this moment.

Sometimes, when we're asked what makes us happy or what makes us successful, we’ll turn to material things that we associate with success and show we have plenty of them. This often comes about through negative conditioning and the desire to avoid certain circumstances – in other words, we want to avoid a lack money so we strive for lots of it; we want to avoid struggle; we want to avoid growing old without anyone to love us or for us to love.

It was the Greek philosopher Aristotle who said: “Happiness depends on ourselves.” The nub of this is that happiness is a byproduct. It’s what happens when we achieve balance across our lives. So, achieving balance is the goal.  

How do we achieve balance?

American psychologist MartinSeligman, a leader in the field of positive psychology, has given us the PERMA model to help us understand the five main factors that contribute to our wellbeing and how we might balance them. 

PERMA stands for:  

• Positive emotions
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning
• Accomplishment

Let’s look at each of these in more detail.

POSITIVE EMOTIONS – here, we’re talking about feeling positive and recognising that we have control over our lives. We’re optimistic about the future, we’re fully aware of the present and we take a positive view of our past. Now, having a positive view of a particularly challenging past might require us to cultivate an attitude of gratitude and forgiveness.

ENGAGEMENT – this is where we’re fully immersed in what we’re doing. Remember the time when you’ve been involved in your favourite hobbies and time has simply flown by? Well, this state of being absorbed is often referred to as being in a state of flow. We're completely engaged and this calms us and improves our well-being. 

RELATIONSHIPS – by nature, we’re social animals with brains hard wired to make connections with others and to depend on others – parents, siblings, friends colleagues, neighbours and so on. Establishing strong connection makes us feel safe and valued.

MEANING – this is about feeling part of something bigger rather than simply pursuing something for personal gain. It’s about having a strong sense of purpose, knowing why we’re here and what we can do for society.

And finally, ACCOMPLISHMENT – we can develop an immense satisfaction from setting and achieving goals because, if they’re the right ones, we’ll grow and learn and they’ll increase how we feel about our ability and sense of control over our lives.

Even achieving modest goals can make us feel good, strengthening our self belief.

In summary, rather than measuring our success by how we compare to others, better to think more about how we compare to who we were yesterday. This means being fully aware and experiencing our range of positive emotions, being absorbed in what we’re doing, developing strong connections, finding meaning in what we do and accomplishing what we set out to achieve.

If we focus our attention on this more rounded approach, then the likelihood of happiness or contentment increases greatly. And we need to remember that happiness is not something on the horizon, it’s something we address now.