Are you able to enjoy life's little pleasures - soaking up the sun, playing with your children, or just relaxing with a glass of wine at the end of the day? Or does your mind keep going back to what you should be doing instead - going for that run, writing that email, or decluttering that closet? According to new research from the University of Zurich, enjoying short-term pleasurable activities actually contributes to our overall happiness.
Key Takeaway
Pursuing long-term goals and enjoying short-term pleasurable activities both contribute to our well-being.
Happiness is one of our principal drives. To get an idea of how important happiness is to us, I did a Google search of "how to be happy" and it yielded over 5 billion results!
But, we believe, and society keeps telling us, that the way to happiness is by pursuing long-term goals, by sacrificing short-term pleasure for future gains. This has made us slaves to our goals, to the endless pursuit of improved performance and greater productivity, and to the to-do lists we'll never complete, creating more stress rather than greater happiness. It keeps us stuck in a life of "shoulds."
In this new study, the researchers asked participants about their ability to pursue short-term pleasurable acitivites "in a variety of contexts, and whether this is related to well-being."
They found that, when people are fully able to immerse themselves in the activity, it contributes to their overall well-being and they experience less anxiety and depression. However, people whose thoughts keeping going back to the goals they're not working on aren't able to fully enjoy their pleasurable activity.
It's not that one is better than the other. Pursuing long-term goals and enjoying short-term pleasurable activities both contribute to our well-being. "Both are important and can complement each other in achieving well-being and good health. It is important to find the right balance in everyday life," says Katharina Bernecker, the study's principal author.
This research fits squarely into the concept of flow. Flow means being so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter and the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it. Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi, the father of flow, developed the concept of flow by asking people what makes them happy! Flow, he writes, is the key to happiness.
Czikszentmihalyi identified four rules for creating a life of flow: Yes, we do need to pursue life goals, but the other three rules are about being fully immersed, or present, in what we're doing. His last rule for creating a life of flow is about enjoying the little things that enrich our lives.
Exactly what Katharina Bernecker and Daniela Becker observed in their study!
Reference:
Bernecker, K. & Becker, D. (2020). Beyond self-control: Mechanisms of hedonic goal pursuit and its relevance for well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2020; 014616722094199 DOI: 10.1177/0146167220941998
Image by Katharine O'Brien on fineartamerica
So are you saying that it is impossible to be happy by living in the moment without goals; say as a little child. This concept of being not doing is espoused by a number of spiritual mystical traditions.
Thank you for your question Larry. I’m not saying that at all. Being present is a key to happiness and well-being, and we can be fully present while working on our goals. They are not mutually exclusive. You can define “goals” here any way you wish: a meaningful life, raising children, spiritual growth, etc. Little children’s play often involves goals: building a fort, having a tea party, etc. And they seem to have an easier time of being fully present. I don’t think that spiritual mystical traditions define the concept of “being” as living a completely hedonic life.