meaning of life

02 Dec 2011 No Comments

Immortal Hacker Challenge (Part Three)

Dear hackers of the world,

It is not superpowers but traits of character that need to be developed by means of avatars and immersion. People like to solve problems especially when they are virtual. By trying different choices we will learn what leads to pain and suffering and what to do in real life if similar circumstances occur. The player will develop understanding, resilience and compassion.

There should be every day scenarios for people, like getting laid off after working for the same company for many years, not having savings and not being able to find a job for a while… What does avatar do and experience? Or racial – one white guy has to live in all black community or one black guy in all Asian community, etc. or to participate in religious services of other religions…  Learn about other cultures and their customs adn traditions. Go live in a foreign country for a year with no local language skills and being illegal. Become a virtual refugee!

It is important to create problem and suffering simulation both for existing and future scenarios. The impact will be tremendous.

Imagine that virtual Alcoholic Anonymous game was translated to all languages and distributed around the world, how many people would stop drinking heavily? Will alcoholism rates go down and people become happier?

Imagine that all young people have access to video games that teach what to do it difficult situations. A teen becomes pregnant or tries drugs for the first time to impress someone, the person creates a habit and starts eating fast food every day and gets ill, someone becomes a soldier and goes to war, followed by PTSD, etc. 

Suddenly a computer virus sounds lame. You can be immortal if you create something that impacts people’s lives positively. See Steve Pavlina’s story Living Virtues below:

“After I reached adulthood and began seriously pondering the question of how to live, the first major stopping point was essentially where Aristotle left off. In my early and mid-20s, I spent a lot of time working on living virtuously. I saw living the best possible life as becoming a person of virtue: to live with honor, integrity, courage, compassion, etc. I listed out the virtues I wanted to attain and even set about inventing exercises to help myself develop them. Benjamin Franklin did something very similar, as I read in his autobiography, and each week he chose to focus on one particular virtue in order to develop his character.

Oddly, there was a particular computer game I absolutely fell in love with during this time — Ultima IV. To date I would have to say it is still my favorite game of all time. In this role-playing game you are the Avatar, a seeker of truth, and your goal is not to destroy some enemy but rather to attain what is called the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. In order to achieve this goal, you must develop your character in the eight virtues. All of these virtues derive from the eight possible combinations of truth, love, and courage as follows:

Truth = Honesty
Love = Compassion
Courage = Valor
Truth + Love = Justice
Truth + Courage = Honor
Love + Courage = Sacrifice
Truth + Love + Courage = Spirituality
The absence of Truth, Love, and Courage is Pride, the opposite of which is Humility.

I found this system of virtues absolutely brilliant, especially coming from a game. Years later when I finally met Richard Garriott, designer of the Ultima series, at the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), I asked him how he came up with this system and how he ended up choosing these virtues. He told me it started with brainstorming a long list and noticing patterns in how the virtues related to each other.

As strange as it is that I got these insights from a game, I still think of living virtuously in much the same way today, where these eight virtues come about through the overlapping sets of truth, love, and courage. For the combination of all three virtues though, I feel that “integrity” is a better fit than “spirituality.” Ultima V went on to explore the opposite of these, the vices which can be derived from falsehood, hatred, and cowardice. Unfortunately I feel the Ultima series really went downhill since then and completely lost its soul — I would have loved to have seen the virtue idea taken even farther”.

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , ,

05 Nov 2011 No Comments

The Evolution of Happiness: Improving Human Happiness (Part Three)

Increase closeness of extended kin

If being deprived of extended close kin leads to depression in modern environments, individuals can take steps to remain in closer proximity or to maintain greater emotional closeness to existing kin. Modern electronic communication, including email, telephone and video conferencing might be exploited to this end when physical proximity is not possible. With people living longer, opportunities to interact with grandparents and grandchildren expand, offering the possibility of strengthening the network of extended kin.

Develop Deep Friendships

According to Tooby and Cosmides, people may suffer a dearth of deep friendships in modern urban living. It is easy to be sometimes friend when times are good. It is where you are really in trouble that you find out who your true friends are. Everyone has experienced fair weather friends who are only there when times are good, but finding a true friend, someone that you know you can rely on when the going gets tough, is a real treasure. People take pains to express their appreciation, communicating that they will never forget the sacrifices made by those who helped them in their darkest hour.

The loneliness and sense of alienation that may feel in modern living, a lack of a feeling of deep social connections despite the presence of many seemingly warm and friendly interactions, may stem from the lack of critical assessment events that tell them who is deeply engaged in their welfare.

Several strategies may help to close this gap between modern and ancestral conditions to deepen social connectedness. First, people should promote reputations that highlight their unique or exceptional attributes. Second, they should be motivated to recognize personal attributes that others value but have difficulty getting from other people. This involves cultivating sensitivity to the values held by others. Third, they should acquire specialized skills that increase irreplaceability. If people develop expertise of proficiency in domains that most others lack, they become indispensable to those who value those competencies. Forth, they should preferentially seek out groups that most strongly value what they have to offer and what others in the group tend to lack, find groups in which their assets will be most highly cherished. Fifth, they should avoid social groups where their unique attributes are not valued. A sixth strategy involves imposition of critical tests designed to deepen the friendship and test the strength of the bond. Those who pass the tests and provide help during these critical times make the transition to true friends marked by deep engagement.

Selecting a mate who is similar – Reducing jealousy and infidelity

 One strategy is to select a long term mate or marriage partner who is similar to you on dimensions such as values, interests, politics, personality, and overall “mate value”. A large body of empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that discrepancies between partners in these qualities lead to increased risk of infidelity, instability of the relationship, and a higher likelihood of eventual breakup. Selecting a mate who is similar, conversely, should lower the likelihood of infidelity, and hence the agony experienced as a result of jealousy. Because jealousy appears to be an evolved emotion designed to combat threats to relationships, anything that reduces its activation should reduce the subjective pain people experience.

Education about evolved psychological sex differences

Education about fact that men’s and women’s minds house somewhat different psychological mechanisms, and that the differences can be deactivated under certain conditions, may help to reduce the frequency of strategic interference.

Managing Competitive Mechanisms

Perhaps the most difficult challenge posed by our evolved psychological mechanisms is managing competition and hierarchy negotiation, given that selection has fashioned powerful mechanisms that drive rivalry  and status striving. Status inequality produces a variety of negative consequences, such as the impairment of health. One potential method of reducing such inequalities is to promote cooperation.

Evolutionists have identified one of the key conditions that promote cooperation – shared fate. Shared fate occurs among genes within a body, for example – when the body dies, all the genes it houses die with it. Genes get selected, in part, for their ability to work cooperatively with other genes. A similar effect occurs with individuals living in some kinds of groups. When the fate of individuals within the group is shared – for example, when the success of a hunt depends on the coordination among all members of the hunting party, or when defense against attack is made successful by the cooperation of a group’s members – then cooperation is enhanced.

Axelrod, an evolutionary political scientist, suggested several ways in which this can be done. First, enlarge the shadow of the future. It could be accomplished by making interactions more frequent and making a commitment to the relationship which occurs, for example, with wedding vows. A second strategy is to teach reciprocity, which not only helps people by making others more cooperative, it also makes it more difficult for exploitative strategies to thrive. A third is to insist on no more than equity. Greed is the downfall of many. By promoting equity, tit-for-tat succeeds by eliciting cooperation from others. One more strategy is to cultivate a personal reputation as a reciprocator. Cultivating a reputation as a reciprocator will make others seek them out for mutual gain. The combined effects of these strategies will create a social norm of cooperation, where those who were formerly exploiters are forced to rehabilitate their bad reputations by becoming cooperators themselves. In this way, cooperation will be promoted throughout the group.

The Fulfillment of Desire

Just as humans have evolved adaptations that create subjective distress, they have evolved desires whose fulfillment brings deep joy. Studies of private wishes reveal an evolutionary menu: the desire for health, professional success, helping friends and relatives, achieving intimacy, feeling the confidence to succeed, satisfying the taste for high quality food, securing personal safety and having the resources to attain all these things. Success at satisfying these desires brings episodes of deep happiness, even if people might habituate to their constant occurrence. Having adequate resources to fulfill desires, making progress toward fulfilling them, achieving a state of flow in the process of achieving them, and succeeding in fulfilling them, and succeeding in fulfilling them in particular domains such as mating provide a few of the evolutionary  keys to increasing human happiness.

From the article “The Evolution of Happiness” by David Buss (2000)

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , ,

29 Oct 2011 No Comments

Omar Khayyam’s Wisdom

My father spent some time of his life in Uzbekistan, and growing up I was exposed to Omar Khayyam’s quotes and poetry. We had a book at home and I liked to read Omar Khayyam’s quatrains (Rubaiyat) which contain so much wisdom. Abdullah Dougan, a modern Naqshbandi Sufi, said: “Every line of the Rubaiyat has more meaning than almost anything you could read in Sufi literature”.

 From Wikipedia:
“Omar Khayyám (Persian: ‏عمر خیام‎; 1048–1131) was a Persian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet. Throughout his life Omar Khayyám was dedicated to his efforts and abilities, in the day he would teach Algebra and Geometry in the evening he would attend the Seljuk court as an adviser of Malik-Shah I and at night he would study Astronomy and complete the important aspects of the Jalali calendar.

Zamakhshari referred to him as “the philosopher of the world”. Many sources have testified that he taught for decades the philosophy of Ibn Sina in Nishapur where Khayyám was born and buried.”

Enjoy some of his pearls of wisdom: 

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”

“A book of verses underneath the bough
A flask of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness
And wilderness is paradise now.”

“There was a Door to which I found no Key
There was a Veil past which I could not see
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seemed–and then no more of THEE and ME.”

“Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain – This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies -
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.”

“I brought the cup to my lips with greed
Begging for longevity, my temporal need
Cup brought its to mine, its secret did feed
Time never returns, drink, of this take heed.”

Alike for those who for To-day prepare,
And those that after some To-morrow stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
“Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There.”

“I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul return’d to me,
And answer’d: ‘I Myself am Heav’n and Hell.”

“Why ponder thus the future to foresee, and jade thy brain to vain perplexity? Cast off thy care, leave Allah’s plans to him – He formed them all without consulting thee.”

“Dead yesterdays and unborn tomorrows, why fret about it, if today be sweet.”

“Thou hast said that Thou wilt torment me, But I shall fear not such a warning. For where Thou art, there can be no torment, And where Thou art not, how can such a place exist?”

“When I want to understand what is happening today or try to decide what will happen tomorrow, I look back.”

“If with wine you are drunk be happy, If seated with a moon-faced (beautiful), be happy, Since the end purpose of the universe is nothing-ness; Hence picture your nothing-ness, then while you are, be happy!”

“Those who have gone forth, thou cup-bearer, Have fallen upon the dust of pride, thou cup-bearer, Drink wine and hear from me the truth: (Hot) air is all that they have said, thou cup-bearer.”

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Hüzün in Istanbul

13 Sep 2011 No Comments

Hüzün in Istanbul

“Hüzün happens when we invest too much in worldly pleasures and material gain. If you hadn’t involved yourself so deeply in this transitory world, you wouldn’t care so much about worldly losses. Hüzün is a spiritual anguish we feel because we can not be close enough to Allah, because we can not do enough for Allah in this world. Hüzün is also when someone has no interest in worldly possessions, but suffers from grief, emptiness and inadequacy because he can never be close enough to Allah. He suffers because he has not suffered enough. Hüzün is in high esteem.

Nothing came to fill the spiritual void. Everyone talks openly about math, success at school, soccer and having fun, but not basic questions of existence – love, compassion, religion, the meaning of life, jealousy, hatred (in trembling confusion and painful solitude). The distance between us (the author and very rich and stupid) was not quite as great as I thought: giving painting to museum or following their passions and living timid mediocre lives. My father wanted to warn me of life of unhappiness I was heading to. A recipe to keep small disaster from me: quick adventure (imagine other Orhan), escape into my second world, paint, fall into a disaster of my own, pick a fight with my brother or count ships.

The main thing I learned at school was not enough to accept the facts of life but you had to be dazzled by their beauty too.

Why I liked painting:

1. Pleasure to draw because it allowed to create miracles everyone appreciated. Get love and praise from others.

2. Escape into another better world.

3. Smell and tools and doing.

4. Create a better world, where you are happy (and perhaps others).

If I prepared to be as bad as I could be I’d be able to paint whenever I liked. Comfort I took in defeat, the damage, the bruises, but then I thought that one day I would do something great.

I forgot the world and played about with my melancholy, its darkness would begin to fade away (when he wrote). Father said that the best thing that a person could do was to live by his own lights – money could never be the object, but if happiness depended on it, it could be a means to that end.

It seemed to me that while we would never find answers to these fundamental questions, it was good for us to ask them anyway, that the happiness and meaning resided in places we would never find and perhaps did not wish to find, but the pursuit (answers, pleasure, emotional depth) mattered no less than the attainment, the asking as important like memories plucked from dreams.”

My favorite parts from “Istanbul” by Orhan Pamuk.

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

09 Aug 2011 No Comments

My Mail Stop is 42

This is my 42nd post and I want to dedicate it to the girl I met 10 years ago.

In the summer of 2001 three of us were staying in the loft on the second floor of a moving company building in Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard. One of my roommates was Lena, funny, clever, sincere and charming. That summer she came to the States to work and travel for three months, and was planning to go back to Estonia and continue her studies. Lena was very artistic; she played guitar, sang and composed poetry.

Three of us had summer jobs all over the island: car rental, ice cream shop, hotel front desk, retail store. We were truly happy. Coming to our loft after work, we would always share our experiences. I remember not sleeping several nights at all just because we were talking, laughing, sharing secrets all night. We had long conversations about the meaning of life. Is it about achieving some heights or just having fun? We did crazy spontaneous things, like swimming at night and discovering bio-luminescent beach. We went sailing in Edgartown harbor on the historical museum boat. The more I knew her, the more I thought she was an angel, not perfect, but pure, with good heart and kind soul. Lena worked in the ice cream shop, and I remember buying cones of maple walnut ice-cream from her, which was my favorite. She would go back home late at night on her bicycle. At the end of the summer a friend of mine invited me to visit California, and so I left the island early. Right after I got to San Francisco, I went to Sausalito. It was there that I stopped at the internet café and got the news: Lena got killed by a drunken truck driver while going home late at night after work. It was probably a couple of weeks before her return home to Estonia.

I remember standing in Sausalito, looking at the ocean, at the sky and crying, asking “Why”? Why people with good hearts, full of life, potential and love leave so early? Did she fulfill her mission in her short life time of 2o something years? I was crying so hard that I looked at the sky and asked her (I was sure she could see me from there) to be my guardian angel, to help me live through life and experience what she would want to experience and do things she didn’t have time to do.

It’s been 10 years since then. Did I do what she wanted me to do? Perhaps. I traveled the world. I completed MBA and worked for a big corporation. I had fun. I loved. I was depressed. I read a lot of books.

I’m happy, not crazy happy, but content happy.

Happy that I live in our time, that I’m free and I can do all the things I want to do to. That my parents are still alive and I love them, that I have great friends, who bring  joy into my life. That I like my work. That I meet similar-minded people and get more ideas about how to make people happy. That on Wednesday I will organize another group testing of the happiness formula.

That it is still summer and even more beautiful season fall is coming upon us in Boston.  That on May 21 nothing catastrophic happened and hopefully will not happen on Dec 21 in 2012. And I still plan to work on this website, the blog and attend the Winter Olympic Games in my home town in 2014.

Thank you, Lena, for guiding me through life to experience everything I’ve experienced and have time and opportunity to work on the things I love.

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

26 Jul 2011 1 Comment

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I was lucky to get tickets to The hedgehog movie during French movie festival in Boston’s MFA this summer. The movie is very new and was not shown in the States before. I wanted to see it because the movie is based on the book The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. I read the book and I loved it. It is so special to me that I even participated in defending the book against harsh critics back in Oct 2010. I simply felt I had to do something after I read complete book’s review here http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/popfr/barbery.htm#ours. So I wrote:

“Hello,

I just read your review of the Elegance of the Hedgehog book by Muriel Barbery. I’m stunned - whoever wrote the review overlooked two important things that happened at the end of the book and kind of gave it the whole meaning. They are:

1. Paloma realized why she wanted to commit suicide: she didn’t want to be like her parents in their social class who are miserable and the most important that she couldn’t help them to be happy (her feeling of not being useful),

2. At the same time the death of Renee taught her and us, readers, that we do not have to die to find true value and beauty of our lives and the world around us, because Rene was doing it every day: appreciating little things and whatever we never thought was enough. We don’t have to die to learn to love life and people around us, even better - we can improve it by being kind to others.

I just want to mention that your review and rating (B. Had some appeal but annoyingly simplistic and reductive) seems simplistic to me.

Sincerely, Marina.”

“Dear Marina:

Thank you for your interest in the Complete Review, and for your comments.

I don’t know that Barbery conveyed those lessons very well: killing off Rene seems like far too easy a solution, and the character of Paloma was weakly written (of course her suicide-ambitions were all teenage melodrama — surely no one ever expected her to really kill herself). And Barbery’s obnoxious class-consciousness confuses the issue too: good and bad are painted far too black and white throughout the book, without any surprises (and finding ‘purity’ and nobleness in the exotic (the Japanese) also seems a terrible over-simplification).

Sincerely yours,

Michael Orthofer

Managing Editor, at the Complete Review and its Literary Saloon”

To find out if you agree with Michael or not, read the book and watch the movie, but the lessons I learned from both of them are:

  1. Try to appreciate life’s beauty in simple things
  2. Make sure you are useful and help others feel useful too
  3. We all are hiding, but want to be discovered and appreciated for what we are, start your discovery! :)

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

09 Jun 2011 No Comments

Three Questions of Life

One day it occurred to a certain emperor that if he only knew the answers to three questions, he would never stray in any matter. What is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times? The emperor issued a decree throughout his kingdom announcing that whoever could answer the questions would receive a great reward. Many who read the decree made their way to the palace at once, each person with a different answer. In reply to the first question, one person advised that the emperor make up a thorough time schedule, consecrating every hour, day, month, and year for certain tasks and then follow the schedule to the letter. Only then could he hope to do every task at the right time. Another person replied that it was impossible to plan in advance and that the emperor should put all vain amusements aside and remain attentive to everything in order to know what to do at what time. Someone else insisted that, by himself, the emperor could never hope to have all the foresight and competence necessary to decide when to do each and every task and what he really needed was to set up a Council of the Wise and then to act according to their advice. Someone else said that certain matters required immediate decision and could not wait for consultation, but if he wanted to know in advance what was going to happen he should consult magicians and soothsayers. The responses to the second question also lacked accord. One person said that the emperor needed to place all his trust in administrators, another urged reliance on priests and monks, while others recommended physicians. Still others put their faith in warriors. The third question drew a similar variety of answers. Some said science was the most important pursuit. Others insisted on religion. Yet others claimed the most important thing was military skill.

The emperor was not pleased with any of the answers, and no reward was given. After several nights of reflection, the emperor resolved to visit a hermit who lived up on the mountain and was said to be an enlightened man. The emperor wished to find the hermit to ask him the three questions, though he knew the hermit never left the mountains and was known to receive only the poor, refusing to have anything to do with persons of wealth or power. So the emperor disguised himself as a simple peasant and ordered his attendants to wait for him at the foot of the mountain while he climbed the slope alone to seek the hermit. Reaching the holy man’s dwelling place, the emperor found the hermit digging a garden in front of his hut. When the hermit saw the stranger, he nodded his head in greeting and continued to dig. The labor was obviously hard on him. He was an old man, and each time he thrust his spade into the ground to turn the earth, he heaved heavily. The emperor approached him and said, “I have come here to ask your help with three questions: When is the best time to do each thing? Who are the most important people to work with? What is the most important thing to do at all times?” The hermit listened attentively but only patted the emperor on the shoulder and continued digging. The emperor said, “You must be tired. Here, let me give you a hand with that.” The hermit thanked him, handed the emperor the spade, and then sat down on the ground to rest. After he had dug two rows, the emperor stopped and turned to the hermit and repeated his three questions. The hermit still did not answer, but instead stood up and pointed to the spade and said, “Why don’t you rest now? I can take over again.” But the emperor continued to dig. One hour passed, then two. Finally the sun began to set behind the mountain. The emperor put down the spade and said to the hermit, “I came here to ask if you could answer my three questions. But if you can’t give me any answer, please let me know so that I can get on may way home.” The hermit lifted his head and asked the emperor, “Do you hear someone running over there?” The emperor turned his head. They both saw a man with a long white beard emerge from the woods. He ran wildly, pressing his hands against a bloody wound in his stomach. The man ran toward the emperor before falling unconscious to the ground, where he lay groaning. Opening the man’s clothing, the emperor and hermit saw that the man had received a deep gash. The emperor cleaned the wound thoroughly and then used his own shirt to bandage it, but the blood completely soaked it within minutes. He rinsed the shirt out and bandaged the wound a second time and continued to do so until the flow of blood had stopped. At last the wounded man regained consciousness and asked for a drink of water. The emperor ran down to the stream and brought back a jug of fresh water. Meanwhile, the sun had disappeared and the night air had begun to turn cold. The hermit gave the emperor a hand in carrying the man into the hut where they laid him down on the hermit’s bed. The man closed his eyes and lay quietly. The emperor was worn out from the long day of climbing the mountain and digging the garden. Leaning against the doorway, he fell asleep. When he rose, the sun had already risen over the mountain. For a moment he forgot where he was and what he had come here for. He looked over to the bed and saw the wounded man also looking around him in confusion. When he saw the emperor, he stared at him intently and then said in a faint whisper, “Please forgive me.” “But what have you done that I should forgive you?” the emperor asked. “You do not know me, your majesty, but I know you. I was your sworn enemy, and I had vowed to take vengeance on you, for during the last war you killed my brother and seized my property. When I learned that you were coming alone to the mountain to meet the hermit, I resolved to surprise you on your way back to kill you. But after waiting a long time there was still no sign of you, and so I left my ambush in order to seek you out. But instead of finding you, I came across your attendants, who recognized me, giving me this wound. Luckily, I escaped and ran here. If I hadn’t met you I would surely be dead by now. I had intended to kill you, but instead you saved my life! I am ashamed and grateful beyond words. If I live, I vow to be your servant for the rest of my life, and I will bid my children and grandchildren to do the same. Please grant me your forgiveness.” The emperor was overjoyed to see that he was so easily reconciled with a former enemy. He not only forgave the man but promised to return all the man’s property and to send his own physician and servants to wait on the man until he was completely healed. After ordering his attendants to take the man home, the emperor returned to see the hermit. Before returning to the palace the emperor wanted to repeat his three questions one last time. He found the hermit sowing seeds in the earth they had dug the day before. The hermit stood up and looked at the emperor. “But your questions have already been answered.” “How’s that?” the emperor asked, puzzled. “Yesterday, if you had not taken pity on my age and given me a hand with digging these beds, you would have been attacked by that man on your way home. Then you would have deeply regretted not staying with me. Therefore the most important time was the time you were digging in the beds, the most important person was myself, and the most important pursuit was to help me. Later, when the wounded man ran up here, the most important time was the time you spent dressing his wound, for if you had not cared for him he would have died and you would have lost the chance to be reconciled with him. Likewise, he was the most important person, and the most important pursuit was taking care of his wound. Remember that there is only one important time and is Now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person with whom you are, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future. The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at you side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.” Leo Tolstoy http://www.yuni.com/library/docs/200.html

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , ,

08 Jun 2011 No Comments

Making the Happiness Formula

Last weekend I finalized happiness categories to be in the formula. The whole process of identifying and validating them took at least four months. I had to read psychology books, self-help books, philosophical works, summaries of religious views, results of various happiness studies and tests. I studied Maslow hierarchy of needs. To collect more modern happiness categories from real humans, I conducted happiness survey back in March. I combined my survey findings with research findings and then removed duplicates. It is important to exclude overlapping categories as much as possible, but have remaining categories complement each other and to form happiness base.

Last month while searching for categories, I found 2003 Happiness model generated by psychologists after interviewing 1,000 people. Its categories were lumped into groups (to make formula short) and that was hard to understand from the user point of view. The model I generated is about having separate defined categories, that don’t have to be in the formula all the time. Individuals will be able to pick and choose what categories apply to their happiness and generate their own formula, which will be unique. Even if everyone on the planet was happy at the same time, all individual formulas still be different as people’s happiness is derived from different sources and amplitude of it is different.

You will be able to create your happiness formula which describes your particular state of mind, outlook on life, if you wish, which will be constantly changing, and you will learn later why.

It would be strange to impose some ideal formula of happiness on someone and say that they have to conform.  People go through different stages in life and some parts of the formula maybe not be understood or accepted by them. Some categories may be absolutely unimportant to some people at some point of their life or throughout life. They just need to understand the whole spectrum of happiness sources to be prepared for changes and to maintain their happiness level long-term.

So I unbundled some broad group categories (like environmental mastery) into standalone categories. And created phrase categories that are easy to understand and identify as the same need to a certain limit. For example, category Love: do you have enough love in your life? This will most likely be interpreted as romantic love that could be platonic or not, but could also be parent’s, sibling’s or friend’s love. etc. So it is up to you what kind of love you want, you just need to be able to tell how much of it you have now in your life. For those who are confused on what love is there will be a way to clarify that later in subcategories.

So in short the formula is about what is it that we want for us to be happy vs how satisfied are we with it now. When I finished describing categories, I created a model in Excel file with formulas of how it will work and started using it daily. Today is the 5th day of my testing and I found some interesting facts.

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , ,

03 Jun 2011 No Comments

Results of the Happiness Survey

Back in March I crafted a survey to help understand what makes people happy and if technology can help us become happier. Volunteers completed the survey anonymously either online or on paper. There were two groups of respondents: a) middle class, age range of 20-40 y.o., who use technology for social purpose, not particularly religious, mainly employed, b) middle to upper class retired people, i.e. 50 y.o. and above, who are not too fond of technology vs. face-to-face meetings for social purpose, mainly non-religious, but with high priorities on ethics and humanism (representatives from Boston Ethical Society). Thank you to all participants!

The Happiness survey is phase One of The Ultimate Answer project, which is about:

  • ›What makes people happy?
  • ›How open are people to share their ideas about happiness and help each other?
  • ›Are there any “common denominators” of happiness?
  • ›Is it possible to measure happiness and how?
  • ›How can happiness be increased in the world?
  • ›Can technology leverage human potential to increase happiness and how?
  • ›What is the meaning of life and how to find it?

82 people answered the survey: 15 from Boston Ethical Society(BES) and 67 from non-BES.

Here are some highlights:

  • 99% knows what happiness is, but only 72% knows what the meaning of life is. Those 28% who have no clue really need to catch up on Monty Python…
  • People are more likely to give a piece of advice than to receive it.
  • 9 out of 10 said that happiness is not permanent, it changes over time.
  • Answers from BES (more ethical and older) group were different from non-BES respondents.
  • Meaning of life is different from personal happiness.

Please, feel free to check out the results of the survey for yourself Happiness Survey Results.

This presentation took place at the Boston Ethical Society on April 17, 2010.

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , ,