I'm a professor of happiness. You might ask yourself, how can somebody be a professor of a feeling? The truth is that it’s so much more than that. And yet most people don't know that. Everybody wants to be happier. I mean, not everybody acts like they do, but everybody wants to be happier, deep in their souls, I do believe. But most people don’t know how to define it. I ask my students at the university, what is happiness? And many of them will say, “Well, it’s the feeling that you get when...” In fact, they all talk about feelings at the very beginning. And I say, no, no, that’s not the true definition of happiness. It's so much more than that. If I asked you, what's the definition of the Thanksgiving dinner, you wouldn’t say, “It’s the smell of the turke, no.” That’s an indication that there’s something special going on in the kitchen. It’s an indication that dinner’s coming. And the happiness feeling that you get is an indication of a much deeper sense, a psychological and even neuroscientific phenomenon. Happiness is a combination of three big things. They're kind of like the macronutrients in food, you might say. If I ask you that to define the Thanksgiving dinner, you might say it's proteins, carbohydrates and fat, and you would be right. And similarly, if I ask you the definition of happiness and you’re getting it correctly, you would say it’s a combination of three things enjoyment, purpose and satisfaction. Now, each one of these things has a big literature unto itself. There people studying each one of these things. They are not obvious. Enjoyment, for example, is not the same thing as pleasure. Maybe you'll see that in the dictionary, but it's not true. Pleasure is something that happens to you. It runs through a very ancient part of your brain called the limbic system. It's a reward for something that happens automatically so that you'll do something again and again. Enjoyment is an elevation of that where you take pleasure, but you add your your true humanity to it. You experience it with other people. You move it literally to a different part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex. And there you can remember it, it becomes a part of your happiness if your Thanksgiving dinner gives you pleasure by filling your belly. The enjoyment comes from consuming that delicious dinner with your family members and the people that you love, thus becoming enjoyment and thus becoming part of your happiness. Similarly, purpose and meaning are not quite so straightforward either. Everybody knows that they want meaning in life, but they can’t quite define it. And it’s hard to. It’s hard to find sometimes, isn’t it? But even beyond that, the great paradox of meaning is that as part of happiness, it requires suffering. I ask people, when did you find your resiliency, who you were, the purpose in your life? And inevitably people talk to me about suffering, about challenges, about loss, about grief, even when their heart was broken, when somebody died that they loved and they survived. That’s when they find their true meaning in life. The irony of that is that happiness requires unhappiness to get meaning. And just like those first too satisfaction is a bit of a paradox. As a matter of fact, is the most difficult of the elements of happiness for us to master. Satisfaction is the great question of life. We want it, we try to get it, but we can’t keep it. Now what is it? Satisfaction is a joy and a job well done is the reward for a goal that you know that feeling. If you want to be satisfied, you'll be satisfied when you graduate from your university, when you marry the person that you love, when you get the house you’ve always dreamed about, when you retire after a long career and then you’ll finally be satisfied. You'll be joyful at the goal that you actually met. And furthermore, you’ll be satisfied forever, right? That's what your brain is telling you. That’s what the marketing around you in the world tells you. That's what Mother Nature tells you. But it’s wrong, you know perfectly when you think about it a little bit, that you hit your goals and they give you a whole bunch of joy, that satisfaction. And then it wears off. You get that car in a new car smell reminds you how wonderful it is. And a couple of weeks later, it's just a car. You move to California because you want the sunshine, you want the beautiful weather. And six months later, you're driving around just cursing the traffic. That seems like one of the cruelest fates in life, almost as if it were a hoax for Mother Nature, but it’s not. It’s actually part of Mother Nature’s plan. See, you can't keep satisfaction because you die. If you stayed satisfied with those worldly things. Let me explain a major and important concept in the world of neuroscience, it’s called homeostasis. Homeostasis is the tendency to go back to a baseline, either physiologically or psychologically. It’s the the equilibrium that we always go back to, that we need to go back to. So we'll be ready for the next set of circumstances in our life. For example, perhaps you went to the gym today, you got on the treadmill and your objective was to raise your pulse rate for cardiovascular health and you raise your pulse rate to 140 beats per minute, and after half an hour you got off and within 15 minutes your pulse was back down to 60 or 70 or wherever it's supposed to be. Thank goodness for that. If you didn’t have homeostasis within a week and your pulse remained elevated, you’d be dead. Now, similarly with your emotions, you need to go back to your baseline. For example, you feel fear as something that happens, but the fear doesn’t last. Why? Because you need to be ready for the next thing that might make you afraid. You can’t be distracted with the last thing or you wouldn’t survive. Your ancestors wouldn’t have passed on their genes. With happy feelings, it’s the same way. You can’t say happy with something that’s happening right now, because you need to be ready for new happiness or new unhappiness, as a matter of fact, this is a survival mechanism. This is Mother Nature's purpose. But she also has a slightly nefarious purpose for you, which is to make you think you’re going to keep your satisfaction, even though she won't let you keep your satisfaction. Why? So you keep running and making progress and trying harder. See, if you knew wasn't going to last, you might just stop and sit down. And Mother Nature doesn't want that. So you run and you run and you think you'll always get to keep it. The Rolling Stones sing, ”I can’t get no satisfaction” in the songs “as I try and I try and I try and I can’t get no satisfaction.” The real point of that song is not that Mick Jagger can't get no satisfaction. He can get satisfaction, so he can’t keep no satisfaction. That’s the irony of this thing running almost as if it were on a treadmill trying to get it. Now it’s interesting, isn’t it? We have a concept in my social science field called the hedonic treadmill. Hedonic means feeling treadmill is just a metaphor, obviously, but you want to get the feeling of joy, you want to get the satisfaction, so you run and you run. Or as Jagger says, you try, you try and you try. You stay more or less in the same place. But she never quite figure it out. Furthermore, as you get more and more addicted to the worldly things, to the material possessions, the money, the power, the pleasure, the fame, the treadmill starts to turn up in speed a nd so you’re running faster. Pretty soon you're running in blinding speed, and you’re not just running out of ambition, you start to run out of fear, right? If you’re a success addict, maybe a little bit of a workaholic. You know how this fear, this fear feels. You’re running for more and more satisfaction that comes from the object of your work, from the returns that you get from that congratulations, from the the raises, the promotions, the deals done. And pretty soon you start thinking yourself, I'm actually not getting that much satisfaction. But what if I stop? What happens if you stop on the treadmill? You face-plant is what happens if you stop on a treadmill and nobody wants that. Well, it might seem to you that I’m kind of a downer here. Then I’m telling you about the human condition. It’s not that great. It’s not that fine. And maybe it even seems like there’s nothing you can do. Well, there is something that you can do. There's a lot that you can do, but you have to be willing to do the work and go contrary to your nature. The old idea that if it feels good do it is wrong. When it comes to happiness, Mother Nature doesn't really care how happy you are. She wants you to pass on your genes. Your happines, that’s up to you, and you need to contravene your tendencies and this is a perfect case. I’m going to tell you how how you can actually achieve lasting and stable satisfaction, but you can’t go with your instincts. It starts with a formula. Most people think that satisfaction comes if I have what I want. If I manage my haves, I expand my haves, if I maximize my haves, I have things, I have possessions, I have relationships. I have money, I have power, I have all of these worldly things. But the truth is that stable and lasting satisfaction comes not from what you have, but what you have divided by what you want. That’s a better model for it. Because when you think about it, it sort of makes sense when you have a lot, well, your wants increase by even more. A friend, he told himself - he was very successful in business - early on in his twenties, he said, You know how I’m going to know I’m a real success, that’s kind of his own yardstick. I’m going to go to the Mercedes dealership and be able to buy a car in cash, he said. And the day he was able to, he was 32, such a gifted guy. He went down and put down his money in cash. I mean, who buys a Mercedes in cash? Different question. He puts down the money and he says, I want my car. And they gave it to him and his satisfaction lasted all of 45 seconds. As he was driving off the lot, he thought to himself, I should have saved six months longer and gotten the Ferrari. What happened? He was managing his haves, but his wants were sprawling. Remember your high school fractions? If you got a fraction, it’s got a numerator and denominator. If you maximize the numerator, then the number goes up. It’s true. But another way for it to go up, another way for your satisfaction to go up is to decrease the denominator to manage your wants. Ask yourself this. Do you have a haves management strategy? Of course you do. Everybody does. Do you have a wants management strategy? I bet you don't. Most people don't. The secret to lasting satisfaction is not to manage your worldly haves to have more, but rather is to want less. I have a beautiful friendship, one that I treasure with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, who dispenses wisdom to people all around the world. He’s the world’s most respected religious figure. And he was guest lecturing for my happiness class last year. And I asked him this question. He was in his home in Dharamsala in the Himalayan foothills. I was in Boston, where I teach, and we were separated because of the coronavirus epidemic. But we were so close and all the things that we were talking about. And I asked him for my students and a live audience of 14 million people. It was a beautiful public event. I said, Your Holiness, what’s the secret to satisfaction? He didn’t tell me that. He didn’t tell me the fraction I just gave you. But he said it in words. He said, “We need to learn how to want what we have, not to have what we want in order to get steady and stable satisfaction.” Another way to think of this is not to have a bucket list, it’s to have a reverse bucket list. In other words, don't think of all of the sticky cravings that you have, but rather make a list of all those cravings and make a plan to renounce your craving to those things. If you get them, great. But if you don’t, that’s great, too. Make a conscious decision to divorce yourself from the cravings to the things on the list. That’s a reverse bucket list. That’s what strong people do. Can you do it? I do that every year on my birthday now, and I've just watched my happiness through my satisfaction increase. Now, you might ask yourself, is there anything, anything that will give me stable and steady satisfaction? The answer is yes. But it's not money, not power, not pleasure, not fame. That’s the bad four. Here’s the good four - faith, family, friends and work. Now, my faith I don’t mean my faith, I don’t mean it necessarily a formal faith. I mean a sense of the grandeur, a sense of the transcendent, a perspective that's bigger than your everyday life, which is so small and so tedious. Maybe it comes from a walk in the forest every day for an hour. Maybe it comes from studying the ancient stoic masters. Maybe it comes from going back to the faith of your youth. Maybe it comes from a meditation practice. You choose. But you must do something every day that zooms you out. Your family life, the ties that bind that don’t break, the ties you don’t choose and God knows in many cases you wouldn’t. Maybe you had a tough Thanksgiving where Aunt Marge wouldn’t stop talking about politics. But you know perfectly that the 2 AM call that you make would go to one of those people, don’t ruin those relationships over trivialities like politics and ideology. Friendship. You need friends, but you don't just need people around you. People who can help you, people at work. That’s not it. Maybe they are people at work who’re your best friends, but maybe not. Here's the the thing to ask yourself. These people around me, are they real friends or deal friends? You know the difference. And finally, work. Work that’s meaningful and meaningful, I don’t mean money and power, no no. I mean any job, whether you’re an electrician or a bus driver or a college professor or a politician or a movie producer, I don’t care. It has to have two characteristics and two characteristics only, you earn your success. You’re rewarded for your hard work and merit and personal responsibility and you’re serving other people with your endeavors. Those are the secrets to meaningful work, faith, family, friends and work, which is all four different kinds of love. And that, my friends, is the secret. So ask yourself these questions. Are you getting true satisfaction? It can’t come from having more. Have you been chasing the wrong thing? On the worldly side? If you’re going to get more and better be on the faith, family, friends and work dimension and not on the things that the world is telling you to chase. Those are the things of which you need to want less. What is true for us is true for the people that we serve. If you, for example, have customers, you have clients. It's important that you realize that you shouldn't sell the wrong thing. You shouldn’t make these promises of satisfaction that you cannot deliver. Remember, the point is that people can enjoy what you provide together in bonds of love, and only then will your product bring true and lasting satisfaction. Associate what you do in your work with the true sources of love and happiness and satisfaction for all people, which in turn, will bring more satisfaction to you.
我是研究幸福的教授。 你可能会问,怎么能 有教授跟单纯和感受有关呢? 事实远不止如此。 但大多数人并不了解。 所有人都想变得快乐。 我的意思是,不是每个人都会表露出来, 但我相信,他们在心里深处都是这么想的。 但是,大部分人 都不知该怎么定义它。 我问我的大学学生:什么是幸福? 他们许多人会说, “唔,就是你在......时的某种感觉”。 事实上,他们都在谈论最初的感觉。 我回答说,不,不, 那不是幸福的真正含义。 它远不止于此。 如果我问你,怎么定义感恩节晚餐, 你不会说,“是火鸡的味道。” 这节日意味着厨房里 有一些特别的事情, 意味着晚餐就要好了。 所以你获得的幸福感 指向一种更深层次的, 心理上甚至是脑科学上的现象。 幸福是三大部分的组合, 你可以说就像食物里 的普遍营养物质, 如果我现在让你去 定义感恩节晚餐的话, 你也许会说:蛋白质、 碳水化合物和脂肪, 你就对了。 同样的,如果我问你幸福的定义, 你掌握的话便会说, 这由三部分组成:享乐、追求和满足。 但这三个各个都涉及到大篇幅的研究; 很多人在探究它们—— 这些和常识不同。 比如,享乐就和快感不是一个东西。 也许字典里是类似的, 但事实并非如此。 快感是发生在你身上的。 它由你大脑中称为边缘系统的 非常古老的区域传递, 是对本能的行为的奖励。 这能驱使你重复地做某事。 享乐是进一步的升华, 你受到快感,但你把人性的部分糅合 进去了。你和别人才能感受到。 它被转移到大脑的另一区域: 前额叶皮层, 并在那里产生记忆。 如果你的感恩节晚餐 让你饱腹而产生快感, 那么它会成为你快乐的一部分。 享乐来自于与你的家庭成员和所爱之人 一同解决掉这可口的晚饭, 而后成为你快乐的一部分。 同样的,追求和目的 也不是直截了当的。 所有人都想知道生命的意义, 但很难真正定义它。 而且很难…有时很难找到,不是吗? 但更进一步,意义的悖论就是 作为幸福的一部分,它需要人去受苦。 我问别人,你在什么时候 发现你内在的坚韧,你是什么样的人, 和你的人生目的如何? 他们不可避免地会和我谈论苦难, 外界的挑战和生活中的失去与悲痛; 当他们心碎了,当他们 爱的人死去,但他们还活着; 这时才发现生命的真正意义。 具有讽刺意味的是, 快乐需要忧郁才能获得价值。 而就像前面两个, 满足也有些自相矛盾; 事实上,也是最难 由我们驾驭的幸福因素。 满足就是生命的“灵魂拷问”。 我们渴求它,我们试图得到它, 但我们留不住它。那它究竟是什么? 满意是一种快乐,一项完成得 不错的任务,是达成目标的奖励… 你知道那种感受。 如果你想得到满足, 在你从大学毕业时, 当你和心爱之人结婚时, 当你买到梦寐以求的房子时, 当你在漫长的职业生涯后 退休时,你就会得到它。 你会为你达成的目标感到高兴。 而且,你会从此心满意足的,对吧? 这是你的大脑告诉你的。 这也是你身边的 商业营销想传递给你的。 这是大自然传授你的。 但不是这样的:你不用多想也知道, 你达成目标后的那种快乐, 满足,会慢慢消失。 你有了辆车,它闻起来那种新车的味儿 让你觉得这是多么美妙; 然后几周过去了—— 这好像只是一辆车。 你搬到加利福尼亚州 因为你渴望阳光, 你喜欢美丽的天气。 可六个月过后,你开着车, 同时骂着糟糕的路况。 这像是生活中最无情的命运, 似乎是大自然的骗局, 但事实并非如此。 这其实是大自然早就安排好了的。 因为,如果你对那些 种种保持满足的话, 那你便无法生存下去。 让我来解释一个神经科学界 的重要中心概念——内稳态。 内稳态就是回到基线的趋势, 无论是生理或心理上。 我们一直需要回到, 也总是会回到这种平衡。 这样我们能为生活中 后面的情况做好准备。 举个例子;也许你今天去健身房, 你走上跑步机; 你的目标是提高心率 以加强心血管健康, 所以你把心率提到每分钟 140 下。 半小时后你下来了, 没过 15 分钟你的心率 就回落到它的正常范围, 不管是 60 还是 70; 谢天谢地。 如果你在一周内还没达到内稳态, 你的心率还是如此之高, 你基本上死了。 同样的,你的情绪也是, 它们需要回到基线。 比方说,你知道恐惧时而出现, 但它是转瞬即逝的。 为什么?因为你需要准备处理 会让你害怕的其它事物。 你不能被之前的占据注意力, 不然就无法生存下去, 那你的祖先也不会 遗传他们的基因。 快乐的感觉也是如此。 你不能对正在发生的某事保持开心, 因为你得时刻准备 迎接新的欢乐或悲伤; 其实,这是一种生存机制。 这是大自然的设计。 但她也有点儿居心险恶, 即让你以为你会持续性地满足, 即使它不会允许你这样。为什么? 为了你继续奔跑, 不断进步,并更加努力。 你看,如果你清楚这些感觉会消失, 你可能就停下来,坐着歇息了。 而大自然不想你这样。 所以你跑啊跑, 想着你将永远留住它。 滚石乐队在歌中唱到, “但我得不到满足”, “我试了又试,试了又试, 但就是无法得到满足。” 那首歌的含义不是米克·贾格尔 (Mick Jagger)无法满足。 他可以心满意足, 但就是无法保持住。 这便是讽刺的地方: 好像试图在跑步机上跑到终点。 这引发人们思索,不是吗? 我们在社会科学界有个概念 叫“享乐跑步机”(hedonic treadmill)。 “Hedonic” 表示感觉, 而跑步机则是一个比喻。 你想要那种快乐、满足的感觉, 于是你跑啊跑; 或者如贾格尔所说, 你试了又试,试了又试。 你或多或少地呆在原地。 但他并没有理解透彻。 此外,随着你愈加沉迷于世俗的事物 和物质财富,金钱、 权力、享受、名声, 跑步机加大功率, 你便跑得越来越快。 很快你就如疾驰残影一般。 你不仅仅是受野心驱使, 而也有些出于害怕,对吧? 如果你是狂热追求成功的, 或有点儿工作狂, 你知道这种恐惧,它是什么感受。 你为了更多从工作项目上获得的, 从回报和奖励得来的, 从收到的祝贺、恭喜,加薪, 升职,和促成的生意获取的成就感; 很快,你意识到, 你实际上没有那么的满足。 但停下来的后果呢? 你在跑步机上停止会怎么样? 你会脸着地。显然没人想这样。 可能在你看来,我就是来扫兴的。 那么我告诉你我们人的处境 并不是那么的良好、温和, 也许你会觉得无能为力。 其实,你有些事情可以干的; 你也能颇有作为。 但你得不嫌累, 和你的本性逆向而行。 有个老话说,不能去做让你舒服的事。 关于幸福,大自然 并不在乎你怎么开心。 她只要你把基因传递下去。 而你的幸福,就靠你自己了。 你需要违背你的本性。 以下是个完美的案例。 我会告诉你怎么做才能 长期、稳定地获得满足, 但你不能凭直觉行事。 首先是一个公式。 大多数人认为当你拥有你想要的, 有效管理并扩张你所拥有的, 最大化你拥有的;你有各种东西, 你持有财产,你有关系脉络, 你有钱,你有权,你物质的东西 无所不有;你就可满足。 但事实上长期稳定的满足感 不单取决于你所拥有的, 而是你持有的,除以你向往的。 这是一个更好的计算方法。 想想看,这是有道理的。 当你拥有很多, 你的欲望会加倍膨胀。 我有个朋友,他告诉自己—— 他在商业界非常成功, 他在二十多岁出头时说, “你知道我会怎么 证明我是成功人士吗,” 这是他自己的衡量标准: “我要能够去梅赛德斯经销商 用现金买下一辆汽车。” 这他在 32 岁就实现了; 如此有天赋的人。 他过去付了现金。 我是说,谁去用现金买梅赛德斯呢? 回到正题。他扔下钱, 说到,我要那辆车。 他们把车交给了他, 而后他的满足感持续了整整 45 秒。 当他驶离停车场时,他在心里想, “我该多存六个月的钱, 搞辆法拉利。” 这是怎么回事?他在管理他的财产, 但他的欲念是无止境的。 还记得你学的高中分数吗? 分数都有一个分子和分母。 如果你把分子设为最大, 数值就会上升。 但另一种方式, 让你满足感上调的另一种方式, 就是减小分母,抑制你的渴望。 问下自己;你有一个理财方案。 这没问题。所有人都有。 但你有管理需求的策略吗? 我打赌你没有。大多数人没有。 长期满足的秘诀 不在于调配你的物质财富 以获取更多,而是在弱化的欲望。 我与向世界各地传授智慧的 第十四世达赖喇嘛,丹增嘉措, 有一段珍贵的友谊。 他是世界最受敬仰的宗教人物。 而他是我去年的幸福课的客座讲师。 我向他提问; 他在喜马拉雅山麓达兰萨拉的家中, 我在波士顿教书。 我们被新冠疫情分隔开来, 但在话题讨论上思想接近。 我为我的学生和 一千四百万人的线上观众问道—— 这是一场出彩的公共活动—— 我说,“陛下,对生活 满意的秘诀是什么?” 他没有说那些,没有说 我刚刚提到的分数。 但他是用文字表述的。他说, “我们需要学习怎么利用我们拥有的, 而不是获得我们想要的, 从而稳定地感到满足。” 另一种考虑方式 就是去掉愿望清单, 写一条“逆向愿望清单”。 换句话说,不要老想着你那些追求, 而是把你的渴望列举出来, 并制定计划和它们断绝联系。 如果你终得到了,那挺不赖。 假设你没有,那也不错。 有意识地把自己与那些欲望分开来。 这就是“逆向愿望清单”。 这是意志坚定的人干的。 你可以吗?我每年生日都这样做, 并且我的幸福度 随着我的满足感增长。 那么,你可能会想,有没有什么 能给予我稳定不变的满足感吗? 显然是有的。但也肯定不是钱财、 权力、快感或声誉。 那四项是低劣的。 这四项是良性的: 信仰、家庭、朋友和工作。 这里我的信仰不一定 是指正式宗教信仰, 是这种宏伟,超越性的元素, 脱出你那无意义 和乏味日常生活的大局观; 也许它来自于每天 在森林里漫步一小时, 也许来自对古代 斯多葛派大师的研究, 也许来自重拾年轻时的信念, 也许来自冥想练习...这是你的选择。 但你每天得做点什么, 让你有整体性的认识。 你的家庭生活,那些搭建起后 不会破裂的纽带, 你被动接受而不会想要的那些关系。 也许你度过了一次难熬的感恩节; 玛吉姨妈就是喋喋不休地谈政治。 但你很清楚凌晨 2 点的电话 会拨给这类人, 不要因为政见或意识形态 这些琐碎的事而搞僵了关系。 友谊。你需要朋友, 但不只是你周围的人; 能提供帮助的人, 工友同事...不是这些。 也许你工作中也有好朋友, 也许没有。 那么问问你自己: 我身边的这些人, 他们是真挚朋友还是生意伙伴呢? 你心里知道。 最后,工作,有意义的工作; 意义,不是指金钱或权力,不不。 我的意思是任何职业, 无论你是电工, 还是公交车司机、大学教授、 政治家、电影制片人...这都无关。 但必须有也只有两个特点: 你换取了你的成功, 你为你的辛勤劳作、 优秀品格和责任心获得回报, 并且你以你的努力造福其他人。 以上乃是有意义的工作之秘诀; 信仰、家庭、朋友和工作, 都是为了不同类型的爱。 而这,我的朋友们, 就是幸福之诀窍。 所以自己反省...... 你是真正满足的吗? 可不来自拥有更多。 你有着错误的追求吗?物质的那些? 你想要更多的最好是 信念、家庭、朋友和工作方面的, 而不是社会驱使你去追求的; 对那些你恰恰得抑制住渴望。 对我们而言适用的 也对我们所服务的人适用。 例如,你有各种客户, 不给他们卖错东西很重要。 你也不应该做出无法实现的 服务满意度承诺。 请记住,我的重点是当人们 可以通过亲密的联系 一起享受你们的服务,只有那样, 你的产品才会带来长期 货真价实的满足感。 将你的工作与所有人爱、 快乐和幸福的真正源头联系起来, 这反过来,会为你带来满足。