Analysing Happiness

Nine days into my Happiness Year I have yet to record one happy one faced day (or a sad faced day). I took some time to analyse happiness further, to understand it on a deeper level.

Happiness can be pictured as a happiness profile over time. Your happiness profile moves up and down and tends to a steady state (how you feel on average over the long term). Each person perceives the course of a day's events with ups and downs. For someone who is euphoric, their perception of events is generally up and their steady state is positive. A happy (or sad) faced day occurs when your happiness profile is above (or below) a certain threshold.

The key to being happy is to increase your steady state or lower your threshold required for a happy faced day.

I believe that people are usually happier at the start of the year. There is an afterglow from the end of year break and many people think 'new year, new start'. I also believe that there can be momentum with happiness. People can have a run happiness or sadness for over six months, before it returns to the steady state.

I can start by breaking down the longer term goal of a Happiness Year into attempting to make each day, and in turn each moment of each day, happy. It means turning events I may perceive as a down into a neutral or even an up. I have noticed that there are often times where I feel a fleeting down moment, in some instances out of my control. For example, if I am hungry or on a crowded train, I may have a down moment. If I can turn these down moments into a neutral or a minor up, I will gradually lift my steady state higher. I can also turn moments where I feel a minor up, such as when I see a nice cloud, into a major up.

By doing this, I am attempting to excel in happiness and be the best at happiness. I have to realise that what I am doing is contrarian and that the average person's steady state may be around a neutral. However, I am trying to be better, to be on the 99th percentile of happiness, and this means not perceiving events in the same way that people on average may perceive them.

By being happy, it does not mean that I am not motivated or driven. It means I am those things and happy.

This week also served as a reminder to me that after a long week working and socialising, work and trading are not for me. I have no happy faced days. It has negatively affected my other goals in life. I feel drained, dispirited, and wasting my life, despite being in a good position, having a good job, and trading well. I am not living the way I want. And that has to change. Starting now.