Can you confidently rank how happy you’ll get from the activities you do each day?
I took a walk on my son’s first day off of school to the library with the whole family. We headed out in the morning and felt rather warm on one of those cloudy Seattle summer days that are cool for about 5 minutes and then open up into a rather humid affair.
Gain in happiness from going to the library: +8.77 (museum/exhibition/library) - rated one of the top 3 activities to bring on a positive vibe!
As I write this, I’m having a cup of green tea (+1.83) while working (-5.43?) and getting ready to go to the Figma Conference (-1.5 or +6.38 depending on whether I use the chart to look at the conference as a seminar/class or as a socializing event).
Ok I’m done with putting arbitrary points next to activities but I just finished “Don’t Trust Your Gut” by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz and there’s a lot of information about what to really pay attention to in life to truly get the most out of it. The author dubbed his book “Moneyball for Life”.
I love data, and I feel like in a number of ways it can make it easier to make decisions when I don’t know what to do. David has an interesting section on how he hacked his way to looking better by generating multiple varying images of himself and having others rate the different versions. As a result, he grew a beard and wears glasses even though he didn’t like his appearance for most of his life.
The illustration at the top of this piece is not necessarily true for everyone, but overall there is a boost in happiness from being around the ocean. It’s true for me. In general, taking a phone call or having a meeting near the ocean (or honestly, just someplace in nature) is a way to change the data points to take work from a bland experience to a more pleasant one. By the way, this wasn’t arbitrary: the data was a mix of tracking people who volunteered to rate how happy they were with an app cross-referenced with their GPS data to show where they were.
The other suggestions to meditate, be in the moment and not daydream about doing something else are definitely bits of advice I’ve heard before, but they appear to be based on science. Sunny days will make you happier, but not as much as having sex, which is the #1 activity ranked to make you happy. So sex with someone you love by the beach on a sunny (or surprisingly, snowy!) day is likely to lead to a joyful outlook. Now for all the people looking for love, or trying to find someplace affordable enough near the coast where it isn’t cold and raining…good luck and set your sights on
For further reading about happiness:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/06/what-makes-us-happy/307439/