I Will Finally be Happy When…..

Many people mistakenly think that happiness is a destination, a permanent state of being that is achieved once a particular goal or achievement is reached. “I will finally be happy when… I graduate from college, find the girl or guy of my dreams, get a job that pays more, have a certain amount of money in my bank account, get to my ideal body weight, etc.” Many people spend their entire lives chasing for the magic bullet, that final achievement that will make their lives perfect.

Perhaps the most well known, yet unsuccessful, happiness chaser is the author of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.  In chapter one verse two he writes, “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” (KJV). In the following chapters the author talks of all the things he did throughout his life to find satisfaction and meaning. He sought after wisdom, knowledge, pleasure, riches and wealth as a way to try to find meaning and happiness in his life. Even though he was successful in achieving wealth, knowledge, and physical pleasure at levels wildly beyond the average individual, in the end, he concluded that all is vanity. His accomplishments, though very great, did not lead to satisfaction, happiness, or meaning in his life.

A more modern example of an unsuccessful happiness chaser is John D. Rockefeller. He became the worlds first billionaire in 1916. A reporter once asked him how much money was enough, he replied, “Just a little more.” No matter how much wealth he amassed, he never found satisfaction.

As Christians, we all know that our relationship with God is of the utmost importance and that our eternal life has more significance than this life on earth. Why then are so many Christians unhappy and caught up in the struggle to acquire physical possessions – a nicer home, a better car, a new cell phone, more clothes, or other material things? Why do some think that once they achieve some milestone in their life: graduate from high school, find a mate, move to a new city, or experience some other event, that they will be happy? After acquiring the physical possession, or achieving the milestone in their life, they may may experience a burst of happiness, but that happiness is typically short-lived and they begin searching for the next thing.

Psychological science describes this phenomenon as hedonic adaptation. Social scientists Brickman and Campbell introduced this term in their 1971 paper “Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society”. The findings of the study showed that we experience temporary spikes in happiness when good things happen, such as winning the lottery, and temporary dips in happiness when bad things happen, such as being in a car accident and suffering permanent life-changing injuries. They found that even with the spikes and dips in happiness due to events, over months and years happiness levels returned to pre-event levels. Another well know study by Brickman, Coates, and Janoff-Bulman, “Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?” further validated the hedonic adaptation. The study observed 22 lottery winners and 29 paralyzed accident victims and found that the lottery winners experienced significantly less pleasure from ordinary events than the control group.

The writer of Ecclesiastes showed us that the temporary spikes in happiness he got from achieving wealth, fame, and knowledge were not lasting. Brickman and Campbell gave modern psychology a word for this – the hedonic treadmill. So how can we get off the hedonic treadmill?

Psalms 139:14 says, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (KJV). God created us with a wonderful brain. Using a computer analogy, every brain comes with a “default program” whose primary purpose is to keep us alive. The limbic system is a major portion of that “default program”. It is the part of the brain responsible for some of the most fundamental things that we do. It triggers the need to eat and drink, the desire to reproduce, how to care for young, our response to our surroundings – i.e. fight or flight response to danger. The limbic system is innate, it doesn’t require any training.

The chemical dopamine is a key player in the limbic system, particularly for motivation and reward. The release of dopamine helps motivate you towards things that are potentially rewarding, such as food, success, love, and achievement. One of the main ways it does this is through a burst of pleasure, motivation and attentiveness. However, this pleasure is short-lived. The hit of dopamine that you get does not offer long-term satisfaction. This helps to explain a little about hedonic adaptation, the tendency for our overall happiness level to return to a baseline over time even with the spikes and dips of events over time.

The temporary spike due to dopamine makes a lot of sense for healthy situations like eating, socialising, and achieving goals. The rise in good feelings after eating a meal helps reinforce that we need to eat to stay alive, but that good feeling fades over a relatively short period of time and we want to eat again within a few hours. If that spike in good feelings after eating lasted for a week, we would find ourselves malnourished because our body wasn’t motivated to find more food.

Since the release of dopamine is tied to reward-seeking and motivation, it can create the illusion that achieving certain goals can lead to long-term happiness. In reality, the effects of dopamine are very short lived. Even worse, our reward system can be hijacked when it comes to addictive substances like alcohol, nicotine, and opioids, or addictive behaviors such as gambling, or pornography.

Our creator gave us our limbic system with the primary purpose of keeping us alive. He also created another part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the executive center of the brain. It is responsible for high-level thinking, decision-making, self-control, and moral reasoning. The limbic system acts on emotion, reward, and impulse. The prefrontal cortex operates with planning, reflection, and control.

The prefrontal cortex is where emotional regulation, impulse control, long-term thinking, social behavior, and moral reasoning takes place.  It helps you stop chasing cheap thrills and instead choose habits, thoughts, and relationships that bring deep, lasting joy. However, unlike the limbic system which is primarily innate, our prefrontal cortex must be developed and trained.

In Biblical terms, the struggle between our limbic system (emotional, impulsive, pleasure-seeking behavior) and our prefrontal cortex (moral reasoning, self-control, high-level thinking) can be thought of as the battle between the flesh and the spirit.

Romans 8:5,6 says, “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” NKJV

Our flesh is driven by impulse, greed, and pleasure seeking. The Spirit exercises self-control, engages in moral thinking, and a desire for spiritual things. The trouble with our flesh, or our limbic system, is that it doesn’t always help us move toward our overall long-term well-being.

We need our limbic system to keep us alive, but it is not designed to give us meaning and happiness in life. The limbic system gives us physical hunger so that we consume sufficient calories to survive, it gives us sexual desire so that we can keep the human race going, it helps us sense and react to dangers to keep us alive and safe from harm. However, the limbic system does little to help our spiritual lives or lead to long-term contentment and satisfaction.

The flash of excitement you get from getting a raise at work is real, it just isn’t long lasting. This drives you to think that in order to be happy, you need a bigger raise. The trouble is that the next dopamine hit will have the same characteristics, it will give you a brief burst of pleasure and satisfaction that will quickly go away. Like the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes and John D. Rockefeller, even if you have more wealth than any one else in the world, if you think wealth will make you happy, you will always want just a little more.

As Ecclesiastes 5: 10 says, “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.” NIV

Even non-monetary accomplishments like getting a college degree, mastering a musical instrument, or even the act of getting married to a wonderful partner, will not inherently make you happy in and of itself. It is what you can do with these new found skills, relationships, and abilities to improve your life and the lives of others that bring lasting meaning.

Becoming happier can be accomplished by using your prefrontal cortex to engage in behaviors and thinking that promotes long-term happiness. By all means, set goals for your life. Work hard. Learn new skills. Strive for growth. Just realize that reaching a milestone is not the key to lasting happiness. Modern neuroscience has shown that following the major teachings of the Bible will help you become happier: showing love and developing relationships, expressing gratitude, engaging in prayer, connecting with God, and developing a higher purpose in your life.