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1 Happiness is the only quest logic

Happiness is the only quest logic

If you put your concerns of adults aside for a moment and think about it, you will see that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this world is actually just a giant zoo. A giant zoo full of animals, stupid, and we're just people who take themselves more seriously.

Every little bit of life exists simply to make copies of itself, since the simple process of cell division by which organisms split in two a few minutes, until the dance of seduction of the complex letters that the leader of the world of tomorrow are by email, writing in their university room, to their boyfriends and girlfriends If they have the courage to click 'send'.

As humans, we are stuck at the top of this pyramid. We have become so complex that the pure reproduction has only a minor weight in our lives. We are the smartest creature on Earth (and most stupid, he must admit), we are programmed to not bother us so we go beyond simple reproduction to be drawn by forecasts of interest rates, people, war, philanthropy or football magazines. We spend much of our time to finding a mate. We have created all this complexity, a sea filled with ideas and activities having absolutely nothing to do with raising babies, and all this because we are all born with a underlying thing: the desire to be happy.

In life, people do all sorts of things, that make a baby, customize, or transform a truck, or search for vaccines, because they think it will make them happy. That you follow just a strong urge animal or give money so that people on the other side of the world can live longer, the behavior to the same origin – the desire to feel good. But the activities which provide us this vary widely because our complex brains receive pleasure for reasons very different.

The dynamic representation of the pyramid, the curves of Maslow

Although this is a little scary to think about, it is essential to start with biology: the realization that you are nothing more than a complex machine made of meat. Pieces of flesh, tubes, hormones and electrical signals are the underlying elements that feed your deeper perceptions and emotions. So, in the same way that fear is just a chemical, happiness is mainly a dose of Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and perhaps a bit of endorphin. If you have already used psychotropics, such as caffeine or alcohol, or if you found yourself with a bad (or good) inexplicable mood, have you ever felt these things in action.

It is very useful to know all this because it avoids you take your moods too seriously. Even the deepest depression is just a disadvantageous mixture of brain chemistry. But it's a bad risk to take to try to solve all the problems of life with just prescription drugs, so that you can become happy with way more consistent and important out outside and enjoying life in the real world.

When you decide how to make the most of this, study the surprising and insightful triangle known under the name of the hierarchy of needs Maslow is usually very helpful.

Figure 1: The Maslow pyramid (pyramid of needs)

CF pyramid of maslow

The true conception of needs according to maslow, to add a time dimension.

I first learned this model being management when I was about 20, and since then it just came to mind at moments the strangest and most useful. Although it was impressive even in my teens, I notice that the wisdom of this model seems to grow more from year to year. In fact I hardly find limits to this model, even inconsistencies (sacrifice of a person) are not inconsistent, if we take the fact that this preserves the genes of human beings as a whole.

This is useful because it's so true. The first pleasures in life are the physiological pleasures, those that keep you alive: food, sleep, breathing… If you do not have it, the rest doesn't really matter. But if you have enough, you quickly start to look at the next level of the pyramid: the security, or the things that helps us not to worry too much as vacancies have clothes and shelter for the winter.

If you have a minimum level of security, you are finally fortunate enough to search for family relationships, intimacy, and friendship. From there, you go to confidence by winning and cherishing the respect of others. If you are lucky enough to come to this, you can then explore the exotic land of self-identity, be creative and act morally and work on personal development.

Is consume synonymous with happiness?

Do not confuse happiness and consumption, yet its two concepts are intertwined in our society. It's so true that INSEE still measure its index of "household morale" on the basis of the degree of ability to consume

While being richer will necessarily change being happier.

Note called the Easterlin paradox the fact that happiness generated by a higher wealth is ephemeral. It takes each time a still greater wealth to have the same happiness, as with drugs.

How the consumer society fooled the pyramid or why you're not happy

Curiously, the flaw in our world is a trap that we placed very low level 2: security.

The principle of consumer society is to create a need for a person to bring it to procure a product whose essential character is usually very questionable. It plays, using the tools, needs basic secondary and in the higher levels of the pyramid of maslow: belonging, self-esteem and the realization.

Our consumer culture encourages us to look upward, to earn respect, sexual intimacy, trust and even to update itself with the new BMW or the latest mercedes, while do that actually destroyed our security. By draining our money, so-called luxury goods like cars make us desperately worried and dependent on a stable job. You enter the rat race, you work to pay for a car that has no value anyway. And keeping us sit and idle, they drain our forces and our health so that our lives become even more precarious, and you get even more suffering.

As you are concerned about your future, your insecurity you suffer a lot.

Suffering is the expectations – reality.

Lower your stupid expectations (car) and you lower your suffering and therefore also increase your level of happiness. More without this car you level up in the pyramid.

Perverse effect: when you're better off in the pyramid, your need of self-esteem of either grows, the car is a solution. In the buying you met the next level but lose the lower level.

Preventing you from free you level 2 of the pyramid of consumerism also more makes you suffer.

Luxury car takes away a lot of happiness capital

Watch in pubs as says the type of gull horizon, there is a lot of advertising cars and very little pub on the commodities. The car will make you stand out from the crowd (playing on your esteem needs…) while in reality, the car will especially help raise you.

Effect of purchases of vehicles on your pyramid of happiness

My philosophy revolves around money and health is supposed to be a bridge over the traps set by the consumer society so that you can take and pass each other rate to higher levels of the pyramid: the family, confidence and self-identity.

If you understand this, you can begin to really understand human happiness. To become the happiest possible in your life, your task is to intelligently press reward at each level of the pyramid of Maslow.

You get your first reward (level 1 of the pyramid) by eating enough nutritious foods to keep your body healthy. But you do not get more reward in you fave dinner and dessert each night in expensive restaurants. However a good and healthy diet is quite possible. You can unlearn you sugar, you'll see it's amazing.
Your next reward comes assuring your safety and that of your loved ones. But you won't get extra happiness point with several houses and boats anywhere in the world. However having passive income or your financial freedom gives bonus points.
Family and friends are a major part of happiness for most of us, but we can't be close to a limited number of people. That's why that reputation and fame does not help us with our loved ones (although it may help increase self esteem to the next level).
At the highest level, it becomes very far-fetched: some people give a lot of their time and their money to help others. Sounds noble, but it's just another way to receive your reward: feeling useful and essential, you fill in your own life. The effect is so powerful that even people who have a lot of trouble dealing with the lower levels of the pyramid are feeling joy provided by the generosity. But on average, feeling more secure, we have less interest for the flight and more motivation to be benevolent with others.

In other words, because from happiness of the whole of the pyramid includes automatically feel good and be good, it is logical that happiness is the best thing to look for in life.

Fortunately the consumer society to succeed in making you forget about all that.

Control cravings to eat?

I saw that understand the happiness of the way I presented it above is a huge shortcut to live a happy life. Suddenly, you can start to weigh and confront every decision with this simple diagram. In addition to that, you can check your decisions with the wisdom of ancient philosophers who were of simple researchers of happiness at the time preceding the formal science.

To illustrate this gem answering the question of the purpose of life, let's throw it in an arena of tests with real-world scenarios:

Example: make efforts vs. use of facilities

When you rake the leaves on an autumn day, you start to be tired and sweat. As if by magic, a Home Depot flyer (American home improvement supplies company) landed in your mail and made the pub of a blower leaf gas on sale at 50%. You're tempted. But this purchase make you happier?

If you are currently more muscular and thin you want, and that you have sought ways to reduce your physical condition, the leaf blower can be an excellent choice. However, if you run out of health (which is pretty basic at level 2 of the pyramid), you will feel generally happier by performing any activity that improves your physical condition – raking, cycling, take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator, and so on.

And the physical condition is not just an optional goal – it is a basic creator of chemicals related to happiness above. A simple daily walk is more effective than most of the prescriptions of antidepressants and other drugs full of side effects.

This is an obvious example, but it translates into something much more emotional: the car. Improve the reliability of your car could indeed provide increased security. In the same way, get a car more effective boost your financial security, while also offering the benefits of self-identity "to be a little less stupid in the eyes of others". However, most car purchases are for opposite reasons – set aside initial sensations, a big car will bring pain in the long term.

That the consumer society wants is for example that parents give for certain things including brands items, like friends. She will use a group concept, comparison with the neighbor.

It's people to sort it out, think before you buy, but it is many temptations, requires to be educated consumer. (Very expensive distributors) instant gratification has become a trap. However it is normal, we are programmed for. The evolution we are programmed to eat immediately (immediate satisfaction) rather than to let the meat and get a fly (so starve to death), natural selection to decide so. This is a reason why we prefer to have 10 000 now rather than 20 000 in 2 years.

To get clean consumption, going to take good habits, less look at the ads and know the thwarted. Remember that TV saw the pub, she sells your brain time to listen to ads to advertisers. If you do not know that a product exists so you don't wish probably not really.

Happy: the effects of Gadgets

What of novelty, for example if you buy an Apple watch or if I buy a Nissan Leaf? We can justify it under the pretext of 'learning' or 'the rationalisation of our lives through effective applications', but again, it is useful to check if we really fix anything at the level of the pyramid.

Read a new gadget you maintains up-to-date technology and can speed up things like checking your heart rate or the translation of sentences for a international travel. But what is your current life sucks a somehow due to a lack of data on heart rate or trouble using Google translation on your phone? If you answer no, it is unlikely that you see a boost of happiness.

Frequently cited, the electric car which is used to make the races is as good to test. Buy an electric car would also offer a more quiet and fast acceleration. But I have a problem with the noise and the speed of acceleration of my car? No. In fact, my only justification for buying a big car is self-identity that it could bring when I write about it on this blog. But is that what my life sucks right now because of a lack of self-identity? That is the only question I need to ask when deciding if I should buy this car.

In one sentence: the happiness Boosters come mainly from the reduction of everything that is bad for your life and leaves itself generally consumer.

Consume is not fun

That is what would you rather be: a fan dedicated to celebrating your favorite band slamming € 100 of concert tickets, or the Member of a group cool, feeling the love of thousands of people and sharing the moments of pleasure that you and your friends the closest create together? If you are not too interested in music, try the same trick with professional sports, the Foundation of a great company, writing, art, carpentry or gardening. Creativity is located right at the top of this pyramid, which means that the rewards are high.