Raj gives the example of a parent who might be inclined to come home from a long day at work and veg out in front of the television set. Reminding ourselves to weigh the greater reward of happiness with whatever the alternative might yield is one way to ensure we’re making better choices. We need to be consciously careful of how we habitually let these lesser goals elbow out actions that would easily grant us happiness. While most of us confess that happiness is near the top of our most important goals, we often forget this and allow ourselves to get distracted by other goals - even goals that would be significantly lower in the hierarchy. “It’s much better to get caught up in the flow of the activity rather than having part of your brain being devoted to monitoring how you’re doing compared to other people,” says Raj. While we’re hard-wired by the instincts that got us by in the past, happiness seems to be more conducive to our survival in this day and age.
In modern society, however, it leads to social comparisons that spark feelings of inferiority if we don’t feel like we’re outpacing - or at least matching - the success of our peers. From an evolutionary standpoint, this desire served us well over the course of human development because it helped us survive and edge out those who didn’t have this desire. One of the most common hitches on the road to happiness is our desire to be superior to other people. We also need to consider the means that get us to these ends - that is, what approach do we use toward fulfilling these needs? While mastery, belonging, and autonomy are necessary ingredients for happiness, they don’t complete the equation. We need to feel a sense of freedom - that we, rather than others, are the authors of our own judgments and decisions. We need to feel a sense of intimacy or connection with at least one other person. We need to feel that we are good at something. Let’s begin by trying to answer that first question: What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life? According to Raj, we need three main things to be happy: The Determinants of a Happy and Fulfilling Life
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Raj hopes that, by writing his book, starting the Happy Smarts Project, and teaching the free A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment online course at Coursera, we can begin to take the business of happiness more seriously. And the fact that no one’s really addressed it seriously until now makes it a surprising oversight - but it does help explain how people who are smart and successful are often just as lost as the rest of us in finding happiness. This is especially surprising when you consider it’s a question that everyone asks at some point in their life. None of us is educated in any way to think about the question of ‘What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life?’ If you think about a university education, I can bet my bottom dollar that there was no course on happiness…I don’t even think the idea of ‘What does it take to lead a happy and fulfilling life?’ was even tangentially mentioned in any of the courses.’ “And the second big reason is that the smart and successful people are no different from the rest of us. “One is that the very things that make people smart and successful - the drive to be better than anyone else at something - actually can come in the way of happiness.” “If you were to step back and look at why this paradox of sorts exists, I think there are two main reasons for it,” says Raj. Raj Raghunathan, author of If You’re so Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy? will tell us, this hasn’t proven to be the case. What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life? Some might assume being smart and successful automatically provide happiness and fulfillment as fringe benefits. Raj Raghunathan, author of If You’re so Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy? about why happiness isn’t necessarily the default for people who seem to “have it all,” and what we can do to ensure our own happiness no matter where we are in life. In episode 518 of The Art of Charm, we talk to Dr. As it turns out, like anything else worth having, the kind of satisfaction enjoyed by the truly happy is something toward which we need to work. The combination of a fancy education, great job, and seemingly superior IQ isn’t a magic formula for happiness.
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