Of maths and motorcycle maintenance

Arthur Brooks’ talk reveals some startling insights into how human beings can be happy.

July 24, 2014 05:36 pm | Updated 05:36 pm IST

Everyone has his or her own take on how to achieve happiness. That notwithstanding, there is something interesting about Arthur Brooks’ theory on how to get happiness. Author of several books on the subject, Brooks draws a distinction between happiness and unhappiness, saying they are not opposites.

Brooks begins by reframing the age old question: What brings happiness? He answers saying, “Three things bring happiness: genetics, big life events and choices. A few years ago social scientists from the University of Minnesota constructed a wonderful database that included 75 pairs of identical twins born between the mid-1930s and the mid-1950s. They were separated at birth and adopted by separate families…And at age 40 they were reunited and they were given a personality test…they found 48 percent of their happiness was genetic. As a matter of fact they found that more of their personality was genetic than they had ever understood before. ..sometimes you wonder about someone who is happy all the time…what is their secret? Their secret is their DNA…”

So Brooks goes on to say if half of what you are is determined by your DNA, it becomes very important to address the other half and bring it to your side…to keep yourself happy.

Brooks comes up with something really interesting, saying that many factors affect the remaining 60 per cent of your personality, and one of them is gender. He says women are happier in all situations. Married, unmarried, divorced, you name it, they are happier than their male counterpart in the same situation.

For men, Brooks says, all is well till the mid-life crisis, around the age of 45, when a man suddenly wishes he could change the path he is treading…he wants to take that little dirt road, on a motorbike and without a helmet! Brooks says this symbolises the man’s desire to be doing something with his life that he enjoys and not rushing along the trodden path just to meet his mortgage payments or school fees. He wants to do what he loves. Eight percent of happiness, says Brooks, comes from gender!

The next is big events. “You want to be happy? Go for your goals. You have got these big goals in life and avoid the bad stuff…If only I can graduate from college with a good GPA and then get a good job, then I will be happy…if I get into a law school, then I will be happy…if only that girl will marry me, I will be happy…a dream house…” Brooks talks in this strain till he says that all big things give only short lived happiness. A new job, a pay hike, everything makes you feel good for a short time and then you are back where you began. In fact he says the one who wins a lottery is often found at lower levels of happiness six months later because small things do not give him joy any longer. Brooks adds we are very bad at getting the things we are seeking.

So, says Brooks, “If you want to be happy do not spend your time obsessing about the great big splash. What you need are habits that will give you the highest likelihood of getting that 40 per cent that will drive these events most likely into your life and drive the bad things out of your life as a regular type of discipline.”

The lifestyle elements are faith, family, community and work. “Faith is the interior life. I am not going to tell you which faith, but thinking about the transcendental, thinking about the things that are not of this world and incorporating them into your life. Family, having solid family relationships; these are things that shouldn’t go away. Community means cultivating important friendships and being charitable. That work brings happiness which makes you believe you are creating value in your life and for other people…and the man who does this is the one who is riding the motorbike, without a helmet."

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