The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky

People are bad at predicting what will bring them happiness or unhappiness. Rigid thought patterns such as “I’ll finally be happy when X” or “I can never be happy if Y” commonly end up being proven wrong. People often underestimate the power of hedonic adaptation and shifts in expectations. They also overestimate the permanence of happiness shifts, not accounting for the fact that triumphs and setbacks are all likely to end up overshadowed by events that happen afterwards. Here is what research on happiness says about big-ticket life decisions.

Romantic relationships. Happiness tends to be high at the start of a romantic relationship, but declines significantly after about two years. Passionate love does not last forever regardless of effort and must eventually transition into companionate love, which triggers smaller emotional highs. Many relationships fail at this boundary; successful companionate love requires taking intentional steps to insert novelty and variety into a relationship. Successful long-term relationships tend to have high ratios of positive to negative interactions, mutual support in reaching individual personal goals, and lots of physical touch.

Divorce. Divorce is an overwhelmingly stressful experience for those undergoing it. However, life goes on, more recent life events start to overshadow the divorce, and happiness levels tend to return to normal after about two years. Many unhappy couples stay together for the sake of the children, but such fears appear to be misguided; across most metrics, there is little difference between children of divorced parents and children of unhappily married parents who stayed together.

Singlehood. Fear of remaining single forever is powerful among young people and often causes them to settle into poor relationships. Married people tend to be happier than divorced or widowed people, but the happiness of married and never-married people tends to be similar. Single people tend to have stronger friendships and stronger relationships with extended relatives than married people do. Married and single people alike must both make the effort to untangle how much their goals are motivated by intrinsic desires and how much is motivated by cultural expectations.

Children. Aspiring parents tend to romanticize the idea of parenthood and underestimate the day-to-day difficulties inherent in the role. Parenthood typically comes bundled with time scarcity and a deterioration in marriage quality. Parents can easily become worn down by life’s many minor hassles and frustrations, especially if they don’t do any intentional self-care or coping. The day-to-day satisfaction of parents is low in the first years of a child’s life, rises after the children start school, falls again during the teenage years, and rises sharply when the kids move out of home. Parents of grown children tend to have lots of rose-tinted memories of parenthood and rarely express regret about it. Grandparenthood tends to be more fun and satisfying than parenthood.

Jobs. Like new romantic relationships, new jobs typically have a honeymoon period (usually about a year) that eventually wears off. Due to their repetitive nature, jobs are highly vulnerable to hedonic adaptation. Climbing the career ladder often causes the goalposts to shift; all the good things about the current job become part of the new baseline and start invoking a sense of entitlement. The satisfaction of reaching specific career milestones and achievements tends to be short-lived and less intense than expected. Even in the best jobs, it is common to feel lethargic, stressed, and dissatisfied many times every day; this effect is caused by natural ultradian biological cycles and does not reflect on the quality of the job. In the end, the most satisfying careers are those driven by intrinsic motivation (interest, personal growth, desire for competence, connection with others, contributions to the community etc) rather than external validation (money, social approval, avoiding guilt etc).

Money. At the country-by-country level, there is a strong correlation between a country’s economic development level and the happiness of its people. Within countries, there is a positive correlation between money and happiness; this correlation weakens with increasing amounts of money but it never becomes negative. Money is correlated only with general life satisfaction; the ratios of positive and negative day-to-day experiences are pretty similar across different economic strata. Satisfaction about money is driven heavily by comparisons with others rather than by absolute standing, causing many well-off people to still feel dissatisfied. Material life upgrades (eg bigger house, nicer car) are vulnerable both to hedonic adaptation and to comparisons with others, meaning that their effects on happiness tend to be minor and short-lived. It is more cost-efficient to spend money on experiences rather than things, to make lots of little splurges rather than a few big ones, and to make purchases far in advance to create an anticipation effect.

Tragedies. In response to bad news such as an adverse health diagnosis, the body initially undergoes a stress response. However, this initial response gets replaced over time with a more mild and thoughtful response as priorities get revised and life is tackled in a more day-by-day fashion. Having a good social support network and a strong internal sense of identity makes coping much easier.

Regrets. Almost everyone middle-aged and older carries one or more major life regrets. For the sake of happiness and maturity, it is healthier to analyze regrets and unmet ambitions and come to terms with them; such an experience (rather than trying to forget about them) helps build character and self-understanding. Regrets about inaction tend to be more intense than regrets about action; it is common for people to acknowledge and regret not taking enough risks in life. When a past life goal is no longer attainable, it is important to replace old goals with new goals and chase the new goals rather than ruminate forever. It is more efficient for happiness to be a “satisficer,” someone who looks for good-enough decisions and settles down, rather than an optimizer who seeks perfect outcomes. Satisficers and optimizers typically end up making the same decisions, but optimizers spend much more time pondering them and feel less satisfied about them in hindsight.

Aging. Young people commonly believe they will be less happy when they are older, but statistically this usually does not come true. Teenagehood and young adulthood is typically the unhappiest stage of life while old age is typically the happiest. Older people have many happiness advantages, most notably a less intense stress response, higher emotional stability, more realistic and grounded ambitions, a greater appreciation for the little things in life, and a weaker fear of missing out.