đ The Pandemic Has Recalibrated our Happiness Threshold
âEVERYONE, ANNOUNCEMENTâ, my cousin messaged our familyâs Facebook group. The breaking news?
Jollibee, the holy grail of Filipino fast food, was opening a branch near her house in Canada. She added, âSorry, I donât have a lot going on.. so everything is exciting!â
Then recently, a friend tweeted a picture of himself sipping a cocktail, âI had my first indoor drink in a long while. It was so surreal.â And I understood what he meant. It was the same bizarre happiness I felt when we ended up celebrating my momâs 60th (60th!) birthday in my cramped 28-sqm apartment, with nothing but take-away and our usual Starbucks order.
Thereâs a common Filipino saying that captures this state of being easy to please. We say âmababaw ang kaligayahanâ, and it directly translates to âshallow happinessâ.
After more than a year of extreme restrictions, it seems that our threshold for happiness has gone down. Weâre slowly regaining the experiences weâve been deprived ofâââand weâre startled by them. Youâre walking down the street and OMG! That cute, fluffy dog is to die for! Here comes your friend. Still got that awesome bestie handshake! Now, off to that corner cafe to chat over some over-priced coffee, which tastes incredibly average, but still, itâs incredible!
And you canât help but think, âIâm never going to take this for granted again.â But what does this commitment really entail?
It turns out that taking things for granted is a natural human tendency. This is due to hedonic adaptationâââthe psychological process âby which people âget used toâ events or stimuli that elicit emotional responses.â And it doesnât matter if the stimulus is a major life change, like starting a new job or getting married. âThe stream of positive emotions resulting from the life change may lessen over time, reverting peopleâs happiness levels back to their baselineâ, explains researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky. This will shift peopleâs expectations, âsuch that the individual now takes for granted those circumstances that used to produce happiness.â
But if the positive feelings we get from big, glamorous stimuli quickly fade, what more when it comes to small, not-so-glamorous ones? Is it really impossible for us to not end up taking them for granted?Â
The research gives hope: âPeople have the capacity to control the speed and extent of adaptation via intentional, effortful activities.âÂ
To slow down adaptation and sustain our happiness, we can practice appreciative attentionâââa particular kind of attention âin the form of gratefulness, as well as âsavoringâ in which one consciously attends to an activityâs enjoyment potential.â In short, take in all the details.
Notice the way your partner holds and caresses your hand. Listen to the hearty laughs of children freely playing in the park. Acknowledge the cashier guyâs warm greeting as he flashes you his biggest smize and helps you with your groceries. Pay close attention to how happy these things make you feel. Amplify them in your mind and make a mental inventoryâââor better yet, actually write them down.
The New Normal will normalize, but the small, beautiful details of everyday life donât have to. Choose to hold on to your âshallow happinessâ, to the power of the simple joys. Because as Usher said in his song Simple Things:
Itâs the simple things in life we forget. Why do you make something so easy so complicated? Searching for whatâs right in front of your face, but you canât see it.
đ¤ˇđťââď¸ Everythingâs Amazing, Nobodyâs Happy
Okay. Thatâs a lie. Everything isnât amazing⌠Here in the Philippines, weâve just confirmed the local transmission of the delta variant. đ˘
But for what itâs worth, I think this video still holds up. Consider the totality of human progress. Yes, we are still in a pandemic. But look at what weâre capable of!
We produced a vaccine at groundbreaking speed
We can spread important information really fast
We have more than enough avenues to stay connected
If you ever feel like society is regressing and the world around you is falling apart, go back to this 4-minute video:
Thatâs it for this week, friends. Btw, the story I shared above isnât on Medium yet. You read it here first. đ Do share it with someone else if it resonated with you!
Remember: It doesnât take that much to be happy. Just stay in the shallows. Thatâs how youâŚ
Create the good life,
â¤ď¸ Ria