“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, always eludes your grasp, but which, if you sit quietly, may just land upon you.” - unknown

Reading this quote makes me think of my previous Winter Break, when all my friends went to Japan. What were they doing? They were posting pictures of the icy blue drinks they tried at the hotel bar, videos that their coaches had filmed of them learning to glide down a slope on skis for the first time, and photos of Hokkaido-made ramen. And I got to experience all of these through my phone, in the comfort of my own home, during the breaks between attempting to raise my SAT math score and waiting for my mom to shout “dinnertime.” Lucky me.

I had everything I needed to be happy but still wasn’t. I didn’t have to go to school for two weeks, I could wake up at noon and go to sleep at three every day, and I had seemingly endless hours to binge the Netflix show that transported me to Korea in the 90s. Was not feeling content just because of simply jealousy? Was I actively choosing to not feel happy?

The question of whether happiness is a choice is one which has exercised the minds of some of our greatest psychologists, scientists and authors. 

“A Balanced Psychology,”  the authors, Martin E. P. Seligman , Acacia C. Parks and Tracy Steen state that happiness is easily achieved through pleasure, which is caused by positive emotions. Individuals can choose to increase their positive emotions by thinking positive thoughts like practicing forgiveness, being mindful, and being optimistic. Pleasure can also be a choice through taking shortcuts like “eating ice cream, masturbating, having a massage, or using drugs.” Both examples demonstrate how happiness is a choice because both can be the direct result of a conscious action. They may be temporary, but the resulting happiness is still an outcome of a decision. 

The author and Harvard University professor Cass R. Sunstien in her article “Yes, Money Can Make You Happy,” argued one can also choose to have temporary experiences for happiness. The article claims that choosing a temporary vacation could bring more happiness than a permanent home innovation or a new car. This is because “novel experiences…provide the basis for valuable memories that endure, and that can help to define the texture of life.” Novel experiences are also impactful and lifelong if it is enjoyed. The fact that simply having new and enjoyed experiences can bring forth happiness proves that an individual can choose to be happy if he or she were to simply try new things. It is true that happiness can be short lived, but at least happiness can be a choice in this form. For longer-lasting happiness, the emotion needs to stem from fulfillment. 

But can I be truly fulfilled if I’m not tearing up the slopes with my buds in Japan? I turned to psychology to find out more.

Choosing to have challenging goals and achieving them with skills and expertise can lead to happiness. In “A Balanced Psychology,” the authors prove how gratification can be found through tasks like playing the guitar or accomplishing a difficult task at work. Although the experience itself may not be pleasant and could even be painful, looking back on them gives gratification. This is due to the fact that being able to overcome difficult challenges gives off a sense of accomplishment, which leads to feeling happy. 

The Hungarian psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, wrote a very successful book called “Finding Flow”. The writer whose name I’m much happier to write than to say stated that being in a state of “flow,” which is complete immersion of overcoming a difficult task with the feeling of effortlessness, can lead to happiness. This state requires complete focus and all of an individual’s skills and effort. Therefore, the individual cannot be distracted with other emotions such as happiness. However, it is after the individual is out of the state of flow that he or she will be “flooded with gratitude” since they are looking back at the “excellence of the experience,” which leads to feeling happy. Overcoming difficult obstacles and facing them with total concentration and experience will give happiness. 

“Happiness is a butterfly”

Which leaves us with the butterfly, a favorite quote of mine. I discovered a quote which it seems is wrongly attributed to the novelist Nathanial Hawthorne which says that “Happiness is a butterfly” which “if pursued, always eludes your grasp, but which, if you sit quietly, may just land upon you.” I think it’s very beautiful and it suggests that happiness cannot be actively pursued, and if everything is done for that sole purpose, there will be a constant pressure to feel happy, which ironically takes away the possibility of being happy.

Where does this leave me? Sitting at home feeling jealous of my friends in Japan? Should I start writing down my goals in my journal to feel a sense of achievement? Should I take up my abandoned hobby of digital art and focus on it until I’m in that state of “flow”? Should I try to seek “novel experiences” and perhaps try something like going to a local archery range? Or do I just continue sitting at my desk and doing nothing to wait for the butterfly to land on me? 

Well, after a few days into winter break and when most of my friends who went to Japan had returned from Japan, I realized that my situation actually wasn’t all that bad. After all, skiing and traveling require lots of energy, both mental and physical. I’d say that my comfortable break within my own cozy room was also worth it.

References:

Seligman, M. E. P., Parks, A. C., & Steen, T. (2004). A balanced psychology and a full life. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 359(1449), 1379–1381. doi:10.1098/rstb.2004.1513 

Sunstein, Cass R. “Yes, Money Can Make You Happy.” The New Republic, 2013, Web

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding flow: the psychology of engagement with everyday life. New York, BasicBooks.

O’Toole, G. Happiness Is A Butterfly, Which When Pursued, Seems Always Just Beyond Your Grasp. Quote Investigator® quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/17/butterfly/