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.
我是幸福學的教授。 你可能想,怎麼會有人 是某個感覺的教授? 其實幸福不只是感覺, 但大部份人不知道。 大家都想更快樂些, 可是並非都會表現出來, 我相信每個人內心深處 都想要更快樂一點, 只是多數人不知去定義它。 我問我的大學學生,幸福是什麼? 很多人會回答, 「嗯,幸福是種感覺,當你……」 事實上,他們一開始都會提到感受。 我告訴他們,不,不, 這不是幸福的真正定義。 幸福不只如此。 如果我問你, 感恩節晚餐的定義是什麼? 你不會說:「是火雞的味道。」 因為那味道只是告訴你: 廚房裡有道特別的菜、 告訴你晚餐快要上桌了。 而你體會到的幸福感 是更深層的感受, 是心理的、甚或是神經科學的現象。 幸福是三大重要因素的結合。 你可以說,他們有點像是 食物中的微量營養素。 如果我請你定義感恩節晚餐, 你如果說它是蛋白質、 碳水化合物跟油脂。 這麼講也沒錯。 相同的,當我問你幸福的定義, 如果你理解正確,你會說: 幸福是三項元素的結合── 享受、意義、滿足感。 而且每一項都能找到許多相關著作。 很多人研究這些元素, 可是它們卻非明顯易懂。 例如,享受並不等同於愉悅。 也許你會說字典這麼寫,其實不是的。 愉悅是被動的, 與腦部一個很古老的部份 「邊緣系統」相關, 這是個自主啟動的獎賞機制, 讓你一再重複地去做某件事。 享受則比愉悅更上一層樓, 因為享受多了真實人性, 而且能與其他人共同體驗。 感覺享受的腦區是位於 腦部前方的「前額葉皮質」。 這個腦區負責記憶你的幸福感── 例如你的感恩節晚餐 帶給你的愉悅飽足感, 透過與家人、所愛的人 分享美味的晚餐, 愉悅升華為享受, 成為幸福感的一部份。 目標與意義差不多也是如此, 不是很直接、明確。 每個人都要有意義的生活, 卻很難下定義。 有時很難找到生活的意義,是吧? 此外,意義最大的矛盾是── 雖是快樂的元素之一, 意義卻需要痛苦才能成立。 我每次問人:你何時發現 生命的韌性、定位、意義? 大家都不約而同地提到 折磨、苦難、哀痛,甚至心碎, 因所愛的人離世, 自己卻還活著的心碎。 通常就是在這些時刻, 他們發現生命的真正意義。 諷刺的是,快樂因為 不快樂才顯得有意義。 如同前兩個元素,滿足也有點弔詭。 事實上,這是幸福的元素中 最難掌握的一個。 滿足是生命的大哉問。 我們想要滿足,得到滿足, 卻無法保持。它到底是什麼? 滿足是喜悅的感受, 把事情做好、達成目標時的獎賞。 你何時會感到滿足? 當你從大學畢業,你會感到滿足、 當你和所愛的人結婚、 買到夢想中的房子、 在工作多年後,終於退休, 這些都會令你感到滿足。 那種真正達成目標而感受到的喜悅。 你甚至覺得就此永遠滿足了,會嗎? 那是你的大腦的直覺反應。 市面上的行銷廣告也都這麼說。 就連大自然也說一樣的話。 但事實不然。 你仔細一想就清楚明白了, 你每次達成目標之後 得到極大的喜悅、滿足, 之後,那個感受逐漸消失。 你買了新車,新車的味道 帶給你喜悅滿足感。 幾個星期後,不過就是一輛車。 你搬到加州,因為你想要加州的陽光, 你想要有好天氣。 六個月後,你發現 自己陷在車陣中咒罵不停。 這似乎是生命中最殘酷的定數之一, 幾乎像是大自然的惡作劇,其實不是。 這只是大自然的部份計畫。 你不可以永遠滿足, 因為一旦你對世俗的東西 心滿意足,你就死啦。 容我講一個神經科學的 重要概念:「體內恆定」, 身體自動回復生理或心理上 一個穩定狀態的傾向。 那是人體始終想要、 也必需回復的平衡狀態, 如此才能隨時準備好 應對生活裏出現的狀況。 例如,當你去健身房,你踏上跑步機, 你的目標是把心率提高, 促進心血管健康, 所以你把心率提高到 每分鐘 140 下, 半小時後,你走下跑步機, 在 15 分鐘內,你的心率 會降回 60 或 70 下, 原本運動前的數值,謝天謝地。 因為如果沒有在一週內 回到恆定狀態, 你的脈博一直保持偏高,你早死了。 情緒也差不多是這樣, 必須回到恆定狀態。 例如,你害怕某事發生, 但那個恐懼不會持續太久。 為什麼? 因為你得準備 迎接下一個恐懼。 因為不斷地處於恐懼之中, 你一定無法生存。 你的祖先就無法把基因傳下來。 幸福的感覺也是如此。 你不能對正在發生的事情 一直感到快樂, 因為你需要為新的快樂 或不快樂做好準備, 這就是生存機制。 這就是大自然的運作方式, 同時,還有一個稍微邪惡的用意, 就是去誤導你,讓你以為 能常保那個滿足感, 為什麼?這樣你才會繼續不斷地努力。 如果你知道滿足不會持續, 你可能就會停下來、賴在地上。 大自然不希望如此。 所以,你會不斷向前, 覺得自己可以保有滿足感。 滾石樂團唱:「我無法得到滿足, 我不斷地嘗試、不斷地努力, 還是無法得到滿足。」 這首歌的重點並不是 米克•傑格得不到滿足。 他可以得到滿足, 只是無法維持這個滿足感。 這就是矛盾所在, 好像在跑步機上跑步一樣。 這很有趣,不是嗎? 在社會科學領域,有個概念 叫「享樂跑步機」。 「享樂」是個感受, 而跑步機只是個比喻, 你想要喜悅的感受, 你想要滿足的感受, 所以你一直跑、一直跑。 或者像傑格唱的, 你一直嘗試、嘗試, 但你始終沒想通, 你一直待在同個位置。 再者,當你越來越沉溺於世俗之物如: 財產、金錢、權力、享樂、名聲, 跑步機速度會愈來愈快, 你也得跑得更快, 很快地,你會以盲目的速度奔跑, 你不只為了野心奔跑, 也開始因恐懼而跑,對吧? 如果你對成功上癮,還是有點工作狂, 你會了解這種恐懼的感受。 你為了追求更多滿足感而跑, 滿足感來自你的工作、 來自你得到的回饋、 來自恭喜道賀、來自加薪、 升職、每筆完成的生意。 很快地,你開始思索, 怎麼現在滿足感愈來愈低, 如果我停下來不跑呢? 如果你在跑步機上突然停下,會怎樣? 下場就是你會摔個臉貼地, 沒有人想要這樣。 你可能會覺得我很掃興。 我只是想說這是人類的處境, 不是那麼好,不是那麼優。 或許會讓你感覺很無力。 可是並非如此,還是有許多你能做的, 但你必須願意投入,與你的本能對抗。 以前大家說的「感覺對了, 就去做吧」其實是錯的。 當談到幸福,大自然其實 並不在乎你有多快樂。 它只要你傳承基因。 你的幸福快樂,你自己負責, 你需要去違反你的天性, 而這是最佳狀況。 我會教你如何實現 持續而穩定的滿足感, 但你不能跟著你的本能走。 這有個公式。 大部份人認為,滿足感來自於擁有, 只要能夠掌控擁有,就能擴張財富。 再將之發揮到極限── 財產、關係、金錢、權力, 所有這些世俗的東西。 但事實是,穩定而持續的滿足感 並不來自於你所擁有的, 而是將你擁有的擺在你的慾望之上。 這是一個比較好的公式。 因為,你仔細想一下就會明白, 你擁有愈多,你就會想要更多。 我有個朋友,自學成才, 二十出頭就事業有成, 他說:知道我對真正成功的定義嗎? 那是他個人的衡量標準。 「 等我去賓士經銷商買車…… 用現金」,他說。 他辦到時才 32 歲,真的很厲害。 他去到門市,掏出現金。 我心想,誰用現金買賓士啊? 這問題無關緊要。 他錢拿出來,說:我要買車。 經銷商交車給他後, 他的滿足感只持續了 45 秒。 因為當他把車開出停車場時,他心想: 早知道我就多存六個月, 就可買到法拉利。 這是什麼情形? 他在掌控管理財富的同時, 他的慾望也在蔓延滋長。 記得你高中學的分數嗎? 分數中的分子與分母。 分子變大,數值就變大的原理。 另一個讓數值變大…… 提高滿足感的方式是── 是減少分母,管理你的慾望。 試問自己: 你有財富管理䇿略嗎? 當然,每個人都有。 你有慾望管理䇿略嗎? 我打賭你沒有。大多數人沒有。 延續滿足感的秘訣 並非掌控或擴張你所擁有的世間物, 而是將慾求降低。 我有個我很珍惜的好朋友, 丹增嘉措,第十四世的達賴喇嘛, 他將智慧傳播給全球世人。 他是全球最受敬重的宗教人物。 去年他來我的幸福課程客座演講。 我問了他一個問題…… 當時他在喜瑪拉雅山腳下 達蘭薩拉鎮的家中。 我則在波士頓我任職的學校, 雖然被冠狀病毒疫情分隔兩地, 但是感覺十分親近,暢談許多議題。 我替我的學生及線上 1400 萬觀眾發問…… 一場美好的活動。 我說:請問尊者,滿足的秘訣為何? 他的回答一點也不像 剛才提到的分數概念。 但他是這麼說的: 「學習享受我們擁有的, 而不是去擁有我們想要的, 如此才能得到穩定且持續地滿足。」 你也可將之想成: 將願望清單改成「解望」清單。 也就是說,停止想 那些擺脫不掉的渴望, 把它們列成另一張清單, 然後有計畫地棄絕對它們的渴望。 如果你辦到,很好。 如果辦不到,也沒問題。 讓自己有意識地脫離 清單上的那些渴望。 這就是「解望」清單,強人都這樣做。 你做得到嗎?我現在 每年生日都做一張, 然後發現我的幸福感 因為滿足而逐年上升。 你也許會自問,有甚麼 能帶給我穩定且持續的滿足? 答案是「有」,可是 不是財富、權力、享樂、名聲, 那是四個不好的東西。 答案是另外四個好東西: 信仰、家人、朋友、及工作。 這裏說的是個人信仰, 我指的不見得是宗教信仰。 我說的是一種宏偉、超越一切的感受, 比起渺小乏味的日常更為廣大。 它可能來自於每天一小時的林中漫步, 也許來自研讀古老斯多葛學派的哲學, 也許來自回歸你年輕時的信仰, 或者冥想練習,你自己選擇做甚麼, 每天固定做點甚麼 去放大提高你的視角。 親人。你不能選擇親人, 那是無法解脫的連結, 雖然你有時真想可以丟掉不要。 比方說你剛度了一個難受的感恩節, 因為瑪姬阿姨對政治喋喋不休, 可是你心裡清楚,凌晨二點的 求救電話一定是打給家人, 不要因為政治、意識形態等 芝麻小事而打壞關係。 友誼。你需要朋友, 但朋友不見得是身邊的人, 或可以幫你的人、同事等等, 我要說的是…… 也許你的同事正是 你最好的朋友,也許不是。 你只消自問: 我身邊的人是真的朋友 還是有利害關係的朋友? 你知道兩者的差別。 最後一點,工作。一份有意義的工作。 這個意義指的不是 金錢與權力,不是的。 我指的是任何工作, 不論是電工、公車司機、大學教授、 甚至政治人物、電影製作人,都一樣, 有意義的工作有兩個特徵,只有兩個: 你的成功是自己努力得來的, 你的努力讓你贏得榮譽、個人責任感, 他人也因為你的努力而受惠。 這就是有意義的工作的真實意義。 信仰、親人、朋友與工作, 其實是四種不同形式的愛。 朋友們,這才是持續滿足感的秘訣。 問問你自己吧。你感到真正地滿足嗎? 滿足絕對與擁有更多無關。 你是否一直在追求錯誤的東西? 世俗層面的東西? 假如你想在信仰、家庭、 友情、工作收穫更多、更好, 而非芸芸眾生所追逐的, 那些世俗事物正是 你該降低慾求的東西。 我們認為有價值的, 對我們所服務的人也是。 例如,如果你有顧客、客戶, 你必須了解你不應該賣錯的東西。 不該承諾無法提供的滿意保證。 記住,重點在於人們能 享受到你提供服務時的愛, 只有這樣,你的產品才能 帶來真正長遠的滿足。 把你的工作與幸福、愛的真義、 及人們的滿足連結起來, 如此也會為你帶來更多的滿足。