The Happiness Industrial Complex is Broken
I thought I had coined “happiness industrial complex.” I was proud.
But as I prepared to write this blog post, a quick Google search disabused me of the notion.
You might wonder: why would I be proud to coin a term that seems so critical of work to improve happiness? Afterall, I have a TEDx talk on joy.
The title of that talk: “Why Joy is Not a Solo Sport” explains my criticism. Despite spending billions of dollars each year to increase our individual happiness, happiness has been trending down among American adults since at least the 1990s, and among adolescents for nearly 15 years.
The reason is simple. We can’t get there alone. In fact, spending too much time pursuing our own individual happiness might sometimes lead to reduced happiness.[1]
What so much individual happiness work misses is that the best way to increase your own happiness is likely to focus on increasing the happiness of those in your community. When your friend becomes happy, you become 63% likelier to be happy — if that friend lives within a mile. Even when a friend of a friend of that friend experiences increased happiness, you have an increased chance of becoming happier, if that group of friends all live within a mile!
This is really good news. You might have heard sadness is contagious — and it is. Many other negative emotions are contagious too. But positive emotions, like happiness, are much more contagious than even the negative feelings are.
The positive psychology field has produced important research about how to increase individual wellbeing — and much of it is focused on what one individual can do outside oneself. The next frontier for this research and practice is to determine how a group of individuals: a community can grow collective joy at a faster pace than broader environmental factors are dragging our collective happiness down. Let’s go to that joyful frontier together!
In the posts that follow, we will examine what matters most for joy, and how communities can advance it. There is a big place for you and your happiness in this too; we are going to examine how, by pursuing joy in community — and by supporting communities in pursuing joy, we can increase our individual happiness at the same time.
The happiness industrial complex is broken. Community joy can fix it.
This is the second of a series of posts about increasing joy in community: the only way we really can significantly increase joy. Whether you’re seeking the best ways to increase your joy; working to make your community the next Denmark; seeking to save democracy; hoping to boost health and well being; or just a family member of friend who wants to kindly tell me you’ve been reading along, this bi-weekly column is for you. If you like it, please help spread the word too.
Stay happy, Eastie, and your community too
[1] This isn’t at all to argue against self-care. Taking care of our own emotional, physical and mental wellbeing is essential for enabling us to be most present for, and helpful for, others. We just need to strike the right balance-and likely will be most successful in increasing our own happiness when our self-care is in the pursuit of enabling us to take better care of others.