Do you ever pause to think why you make certain decisions? The reasons may vary, but at their heart, you probably just want to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a global one, yet we seem to know so little about happiness – that emotion that drives many of our critical life choices.
Defining emotions is no easy task, and defining happiness is no exception. At its core, happiness is felt when the brain chemicals, dopamine and serotonin, are released, causing us to relax, feel uplifted, and sleep soundly. Beyond the physical explanation of the emotion, happiness remains hard to define. Nonetheless, scientists have narrowed down some habits that encourage the brain to keep the happy chemicals flowing.
Before we jump ahead to the things that ignite happiness, we must differentiate between short-term and long-term happiness. Short-term happiness, which you feel when you eat your favorite food or buy something new, is momentary and fades away quickly. Conversely, long-term happiness is more enduring, and involves dealing with all emotions – good or bad.
“We think happiness is like a Facebook reel of vacations and achievements and checkboxes for life goals,” says Emiliana Simon-Thomas, co-teacher of The Science of Happiness course at University of California, Berkley. “But people who pursue happiness in that sort of belief system end up being less happy than people who define happiness in a more overarching, quality-of-life way.”
So how can we achieve long- term happiness?
There’s a lot in life that’s beyond our control, and gladly, happiness isn’t one of them. According to the happiness pie chart, genetics, circumstances, and daily activities all influence our level of happiness. While we may not be able to reengineer our genetic makeup or entirely control the happenings of our lives, we can certainly choose to adopt daily activities and thought patterns that lead us to happier lives.
These catalysts of happiness can be summed up in three main paths: the path of goodness, the path of positivity, and the path of success.
Goodness is traditionally equated with helping others. However, we also owe it to ourselves to be compassionate and kind.
Helping others, also known as prosocial behavior, can take many forms, such as complimenting a stranger, visiting the elderly or ill, or donating money to those in need. No matter how prosocial behavior is expressed, making others happy is a sure way to be happy ourselves.
What’s equally important to achieving and maintaining happiness is being compassionate to ourselves, catering both to our physical and emotional needs, while reminding ourselves that our errors are part of our human experience.
Unlike the purely joyful image of life that toxic positivity paints, healthy positivity requires that we acknowledge the unpleasantness of life and the emotions that come with it, and learn how to respond to it optimistically. Among the habits that lead to healthy positivity, meditating, practicing gratitude, and adopting a growth mindset are considered the most effective.
While meditation helps you train your mind to be present in the moment, keeping a gratitude journal trains your brain to focus on the bright side even when the circumstances get bleak.
Meanwhile, a growth mindset allows us to acknowledge the inevitability of change in life, which helps us cope better with new challenges and admit to our shortcomings and mistakes, turning them into an opportunity to grow and mature.
Success is perhaps the most forceful driver of happiness, yet the trickiest to navigate due to the image of success being limited to professional achievement and its subsequent material wealth and social status.
Instead, try replacing success with finding meaning and purpose in life, which is an ongoing journey along which every small feat is a valuable success. While pursuing purpose may lead to professional success, professional success doesn’t guarantee happiness if it lacks meaning or purpose.
The Paths of Happiness at Mountain View
Being happy on the individual level is one thing, but to be able to relish peace and welfare collectively is the ultimate goal – a goal that can only be fulfilled by engaging in genuine interactions and building personal connections. That’s why the design of Mountain View projects involves two interlacing blueprints that impact one another: the blueprint of city and building design and the blueprint of happiness that aims to enable purposeful communities through the paths of goodness, positivity, and success.
By observing our communities, it was strikingly obvious that the bubble, or the “virtual estate” as our Chairman, Eng. Amr Soliman describes it, was a primary obstacle slowed down the spread of genuine happiness. With overwhelming hours of screen time, family and community members barely had the chance to interact or learn more about themselves and those surrounding them.
Realizing the dangers of this invisible dust cloud that obscures our vision and distracts us from what matters the most, we collaborated with the international star footballer and brand ambassador, Mohamed Salah, on spreading the global #Bubble_Free movement, a worldwide invitation to spend less time in front of screens and more time in the here-and- now, building deeper, more genuine connections with ourselves, family, and friends.
