Think about the last time you felt stressed or low in mood. Did thinking about it help? It’s natural to feel like you can think your way out of feeling something. Thinking about things can solve our problems in the outside world, so it makes sense we get the impression that thinking about our internal problems can fix them.

The problem is, the brain doesn’t take kindly to orders. If I told you not to think about a blue basket ball right now, I can almost guarantee that’s exactly what you’ll think about. Trying to avoid a feeling or a thought only brings your attention to it. So, the more you try to tell yourself to stop feeling something, the more that feeling is going to hang around.

So what’s the solution?

Lately, mindfulness has been receiving a lot of attention, appearing in business conferences, self-help books, and cafés around the country. In August, the burger chain “Grill’d” ran a promotion called “Mindfulness Matters”.

What is mindfulness? I’m reminded of that scene from the Matrix: Nobody can be told exactly what mindfulness is. They have to experience it for themselves. That’s the idea anyway. It’s called an “experiential exercise”, meaning you have to experience it. Talking about mindfulness doesn’t help you understand what it’s really about.

Essentially, mindfulness is the mental state you get in when you focus your attention on the present moment. But it’s also more than that. It’s about not getting caught up in your thoughts and feelings. It’s about accepting whatever is happening with you in this moment, without judgement.

There are a number of reasons it’s been receiving so much attention. Firstly, I should say, mindfulness is not a new concept. In fact, it’s ancient. It dates back to at least the sixth century BC. It has been a part of Eastern philosophy for some time. So why are we all noticing it now? Well, the main reason is that the field of science has started paying attention to it. There are now a number of studies that have found strong evidence in support of mindfulness as a mental health treatment. People have also been using it as a means of engaging with their life more fully and in a way that allows them to get more from it.

Have you ever been driving when, after some time, you realise that you haven’t been paying attention? You might not even have any memory of the last few minutes driving. This is referred to as “automatic pilot” mode. It might seem like a miracle you didn’t crash. Often, you’ve been thinking about something, and you’ve completely missed out on everything that is happening around you.

As you can probably imagine, living your life in autopilot mode means you will miss out on potentially rich experiences. Our brains are designed to think about and plan for the future. The problem is that, sometimes, we can miss out on the present. In the words of John Lennon, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.

The problem with thinking:

Human beings have huge prefrontal cortices. This is the area of the brain that, among other things, allows us to have abstract thoughts (for example, thoughts about anything beyond what is happening here and now). When you’re thinking about what you’re going to have for dinner tonight, or whether you can afford that new car, that’s your prefrontal cortex at work. This ability has been, arguably, our greatest strength as a species. It allows us to plan for things ahead of time and helps us to work together to achieve things that would not be possible without abstract thinking. But, it could also be argued to be one of our greatest weaknesses. When you’re preparing for a speech and you keep imagining the crowd falling dead silent on a joke or judging you in some way, that’s also part of the same process.

Imagine you had to make a huge journey. You’re driving interstate. There’s a part of your brain that is like the kid in the back seat asking “are we there yet” constantly throughout the trip. In order to answer that question, you have to use your prefrontal cortex to think about your goal (arriving at your destination) and how far you are from achieving that goal (how many hours until you arrive). This is great, because it helps us complete the task better. We know how much food to bring with us in the car, how much petrol we’ll need, and when we need to start looking-out for somewhere to sleep. Our brains work great for this kind of task.

The problem is, we use this same process in unhealthy ways. Think about a long-term goal you have. Maybe you want to have a family, or to become the general manager at your workplace, or just to have a lot of money. Your brain is going to constantly compare where you are with where you want to be. Instead of being focused on what you have achieved, you will be focused on how far you are from achieving whatever else you want. In the case of the road trip, it’s telling you “you have five hours before you get there”. In the case of becoming GM at your workplace, it’s telling you “you have at least three promotions before you can get to that point and you haven’t even received one promotion yet. Plus, there are other people at your work who are better workers than you etc.”.  This is a guaranteed way to make yourself feel down or anxious.

It’s largely accepted today that our emotions are closely linked to our thoughts. Whether we are aware of it or not, the thoughts we have lead to the emotions we feel. This is where mindfulness comes in. Being mindful allows you to let your thoughts be in the background while you focus on the present moment. It is a difficult skill to master and, like physical skills, you need to practice in order to get better at it. But, once you’re able to be mindful in your daily life, you’ll find that you’re less bothered by things and better able to get the most out of life.

Image from Ian Iott

I know this may seem like a question with an obvious answer, but is happiness really worth pursuing?

We’re reminded about the importance of happiness everyday. We hear songs about it, we watch movies about it, and we see our happy friends on social media.

Everyone seems to have it, why shouldn’t I?

We seem to have learnt that happiness is a basic human right. The pursuit of happiness is even in the US Charter of Independence, along with “life” and “liberty”, as an “inalienable human right”.

Perhaps this isn’t surprising. Happiness is a good thing. Some of our most valued memories in life are probably of a time when we were happy. But, is happiness a worthy pursuit?

As an extreme example to make the point, imagine you could be happy your whole life, sitting alone in a room with a smile on your face. Would you look back on such a life as one that was well lived? Hopefully it’s obvious, then, that there are more important things in life than happiness. It would appear that a happy life without meaning or rich experiences is not something most people would want.

Happiness is fleeting. It has to be. If we were happy all of the time, it would stop motivating our behaviour. It would no longer serve its function.

Happiness can be a reward you get for achieving a goal, but should not be a goal in itself. It is a rewarding emotion that is associated with neural structures in the brain meant to encourage certain behaviour. It’s meant to motivate us.

That means that, if you felt happy all of the time, those certain behaviours would not be encouraged and your motivation to do anything other than sit around and breath would probably be non-existent. Happiness is a reward that’s meant to encourage functional behaviour. For example, you might feel happy when you get a promotion at work, so this reward encourages you to keep working hard and feel that rewarding emotion again.

Sometimes, this fact can be hard to remember. We often meet people who seem happy all the time. If someone asked them whether they were happy in their life, they may reply “yes”, and they may even mean it. But, generally speaking, they’re answering a different question (bear with me):

When considering whether we’re happy in our lives, most people answer by considering how close their life is to the way they want it to be. If we’re living the way we want to live, we’re more likely to say we’re happy. If our life is nothing like we want it to be, we’re less likely to say we’re happy. But, strangely enough, these answers actually have little to do with the emotion of happiness. Research suggests that, if someone asked you how happy you’ve been over the last year, you’d probably give an entirely different answer than if, over the last year, you were asked to rate how happy you felt at a given moment at random times over the day. In other words, you might feel stressed and overwhelmed moment-to-moment, but still report that, overall, you’re happy with your life because you’ve got the job / intimate partner / house you’ve always wanted. Even if you’re not actively feeling the emotion of happiness.

So what’s going on here? Nobody’s achieving ongoing happiness, but everyone feels like everyone but themselves is consistently happy. We see everyone else and we feel like happiness is something achievable. Just have a look at all the smiling faces and happy status updates on Facebook. But then, take a moment to look over your own Facebook activity and think about what people might think about you. Are there any photos of that moment you were sitting alone one night feeling like life could not possibly get any worse? Are there even any photos of your “bad side”?

So we’re all in the same boat. When people make this realisation, it can often be a relief. But then, one night, an episode of Entourage is playing in the background while you’re analysing your ex-partner’s latest holiday photos online and it’s easy to believe that life is meant to be one big party that lasts forever without any bad times. In that moment, you probably don’t feel great. This is what I mean when I say the pursuit of happiness is making you sad.

So what does all this mean?

We can never achieve an ongoing state of happiness? And is that a bad thing? Well, not if you look at the alternative. The truth is, we don’t really want to just be happy. We want to live a rich, full, and meaningful life, moment-to-moment.

Chasing things that create temporary happiness for us, or avoiding things that take away from our happiness, doesn’t make life any richer, fuller, or more meaningful. In fact, sometimes, making tough decisions or sacrifices can lead to some of our most valued experiences in life. For example, helping others can be one of the most meaningful things you can do, even if it makes you sad being exposed to a depressing aspect of our world. It will enrich your life whether or not it makes you feel happy.

The trick is to understand what your values are, and act in a way that is consistent with them. For example, if you value being a fit or active person, then eating well, exercising, or playing sports are all great goals that can help you live a rich, full, and meaningful life, without worrying about attaining that elusive happiness. It may come as a pleasant side effect, but even if it doesn’t, you probably won’t care.

I know this may seem controversial, and I’m not saying happiness is undesirable or even unattainable. It is just better thought of as an incidental part of life, rather than something we should all be chasing.

Image from Ian Iott