Happiness

[00:00:00] oh, you know, when you see two dogs meet and they get excited about each other and their butts start going,

tails wagon? Absolutely.

What’s up? We’re happy.

We’re happy. Um, are we recording?

are in fact recording.

So I don’t know why this topic popped into my head recently, but it just did. Oh, you know why? Because I’ve been thinking about joy. a lot more recently.

is she?

Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell you later. No, um,, and so that’s maybe for a topic down the road because I do feel like

we can, I don’t know, what got me thinking about joy was that I feel like it’s almost something you have to foster.

it doesn’t

doesn’t come naturally to everyone feeling moments of joy necessarily, especially depending on, just how you’ve been socialized and whether or not that’s been something that’s sort of fostered in you or, or pointed out to you,

And I think it can get harder over time.

harder over time and we can get kind of stuck in ruts or negative loops and things like that.

And so I wanted to talk a little bit about happiness because it’s very much related and there is, you There have been a lot of, uh, research done on it and

conversations already. I already had about in fact, during the pandemic, I took that, I think it’s a run out of Harvard, but it’s this free course on

Yeah.

And so that was really, that was really interesting as well. Cause I did learn a lot, some things I knew already, but it was really about [00:02:00] like tapping into that. Why don’t I start with

things that I’ve learned about happiness over the years in terms of actual research, like the science of happiness.

 So one point is that we can’t be happy all the time. And I feel like sometimes people expect That they should be happy more often, or happy all the time.

time. There’s pressure, isn’t

pressure. There’s

kind of pressure around it, and I mean, social media and things like that don’t help too, because mostly what we see are these very happy moments that people are living.

Totally. Or even it’s just like, Oh, Hey, how’s it going? The only correct response is, Oh, good.

I make the mistake of being truly honest sometimes, and then I realize that that’s not what they were expecting. That interaction with neurodivergence. That is neurodivergence right there. Because I’m like, well, actually, and I go, I go into a couple of very, uh, authentic details. Uh, but no, it’s not, it’s not something, , we can achieve all the time.

And there’s things that contribute to it. Like it’s, it’s not all within our power to. There’s things in our genetic makeup, our nervous system, that can make it more challenging for some people to be happy,

right?

challenging for some to be happy. Yes.

know what? I don’t know that I have an actual definition. How would you define it?

happiness? Do we

Stuff that makes you smile, things that bring you positive feelings.

Um,

Yeah. Joy, too, is in there, yeah.

Yeah, I think we spend a lot of time, thinking about, depression, anxiety, or, rumination, things like that, which are all in my, in my mind or from our previous episodes, forward looking or, or, looking back and all of these types of things. Whereas I think, and I haven’t done the Harvard study, but, uh, that joy and happiness [00:04:00] is kind of about it.

Being in the present moment.

Um, so I don’t know. I think that’s where I would kind of ground my understanding of happiness.

I was going to add the word contentment, and um, looking it up, the internet has done that for me as well. Happiness is a sense of well being, joy, or contentment. So there’s some things in our genetic makeup that can affect how often we feel, we feel happiness. Plus, if you think about the idea of contrasts, you can appreciate happiness more when you also experience

Right?

Right? I

Yeah, right?

right? You need those contrasts in order to experience the opposite as well.

So,

well. So, um, And um, a friend of mine passed away semi recently and you feel such grief and sadness when Because of the joy and the light and the connection, at least that was my, like, in, in thinking about, , losing this friend, that was something that kind of kept coming up for me, is that, like, it’s the other side of the same coin, you know, it’s like, that person was so great and so beautiful, and now it’s so sad because you’re, it’s like, it’s that opposition.

I don’t know if you, um, prescribed to that. I don’t know if it’s like happy or sad, but like good and evil of having to be in balance. ,

But that, that’s a really good point about grief there. And I don’t remember the, the quote exactly, but this idea of grief being, it’s like, it’s because you, there’s love there that there’s grief there.

Right. And, and the grief is you missing that object of your love. Like they’re not, they’re not there anymore for you to share that

like a little

it’s still exactly. It is a little happiness hole. Right. Okay. See you. Um, and another thing, another reason we can’t be happy all of the time is because our brains normalize everything.

So whether it’s something really amazing that happens to you or something really tragic, [00:06:00] eventually we find, ideally, eventually we find a balance. Because our brains don’t strive for happiness. Our brains strive for

for happiness. Our brains strive for regulation. that you never want to hear is, Oh, in time,

Yes, yeah, it takes time,

but yeah, you will balance out in time and the thing that hurts right now won’t hurt and the thing that also is like extreme joy, it’s like, we talk about relationships a lot on this podcast and think about like new relationship energy that fades.

fades. Yeah, absolutely.

not

for

Um, but yeah, so our brains adapt and there’s been studies around people who have like won the lottery versus people who have really injured themselves severely.

And within a year, they, they register the same levels of happiness. So, so another part of this, this sort of topic around happiness is that we often, um, Don’t do a good job of anticipating what’s going to make us happy. And there’s a researcher, I think his name is, a researcher named Dan Gilbert, I believe, uh, who calls it miswanting.

So we often miswant things, which is exactly, you know, the way it sounds. It’s, we don’t do a good job of predicting those things that are going to make us happy. So for example, one thing we often get wrong is around choice.

we

Like, do you think, you know, You’re happier when you have choice, more choice, or happier when you have less choice?

choice?

Okay, if we’re at a restaurant and there is a spiral notebook for a menu, it’s too much. I want Five good

things.

And when you do order something, do you feel content in your choice?

Usually.

Okay.

okay, but is there ever a thing where That also, other thing might have been slightly better.[00:08:00]

going out for dinner with pals or a partner hack, uh, I’m, I’m a big proponent of, hey, what are we getting?

I want to try lots of

Okay, so that’s, you found the hack then, so that’s cheating.

Oh, I’m a

That’s cheating, not all of us have that option. Um, okay, but there’s

No, if we go out, you will be sharing with

I will be sharing, okay, that’s fine, I’m cool with that, I like that. Um, but there’s this myth of choice, essentially, this idea that More choice will lead to happiness.

And there’ve been some studies around this too that are really interesting. Like for example, these people, part of the study, they were asked to take a certain number of photos and then, , everyone was forced to choose a print that they could have and take home with them.

Half of the group was told that. In a couple days or whatever they, or a year, however long, they could change their mind. They always had the option to change their mind and take another one. But the other group who was, you know, only had one choice and they had to stick with it.

which group

do you think would be happier though, in the end, with the print that they

they chose?

Oh, one choice for sure.

What’s that?

that? The ones who didn’t have a choice.

Yes, exactly. And, and so what the research has found is that we, we literally synthesize happiness. Like we create happiness the most when we have no choice. Yeah. When we’re stuck with what we have

in, um, in dating, I’ve heard it called the paradox of choice.

And so an issue that actually has come from apps and all of those things, it’s like always looking for that grass is greener. There might be something else. And I think we live in this world where it’s like we’re constantly conditioned that we have to like optimize everything. totally fall guilty to this of like how can I make this just like that little extra percent better whereas if we just Took the choice out of it and we’re like, oh, this is it We would feel a lot like I think you’re absolutely right.

We would feel a lot more content

[00:10:00] Right. And then even, uh, further to this study, they, they would give students or people in the study an option to say, do you want to take a course where you can have endless choice or not? And over 50 percent of the people chose to have more choice. So they’re essentially again, miss wanting, unhappier,

but they don’t know it.

We don’t know what’s best for us. right?

And that’s why Dominatrix will always have a job.

I’m sorry, what?

No,

What’s the what? Wait, what’s the connection there?

Okay, how did my brain get

there? How did your brain go there? I wanna know

the choice. No choice. Oh, just being like

don’t have a choice.

gotcha. Okay. Gotcha. That’s true. I mean,

Chili pepper.

yeah. Oh yeah, she pepper alert. Uh, let’s see, what else was I gonna say about that?

 I was, I was going to say as well, it’s The sooner you make the choice. I don’t like

there

We we do this thing we’ll make dinner and then we’re like, oh we’re gonna put a show on and I am the happiest when we are In the thick of a show lots of episodes

You know, to come all of that The worst thing could be is like you turn on the tv and you’re like, oh my gosh There is literally 10 000 things.

What are we going to watch? It’s nothing. That’s it’s horrible.

Yeah, it’s, it’s like, uh, too much choice feels like, still kind of no choice because you don’t want to make one of those choices.

I don’t know. It’s difficult. Yeah. Um, another thing about happiness is that, I guess this relates to the idea too, of us not being able to be happy all the time, is that happiness isn’t a state, it’s a signal.

Meaning, it’s, it moves us towards things that we think will make us happy or content. Um, but. It’s not a permanent place we can be.

It’s more like, it’s more like, you know, some, that thing being dangled in [00:12:00] front of us, pushing us towards some sort of

sort of goal. So there’s like some sort of evolutionary, like, reason for that.

It’s like, you need to find those perfectly ripe berries because they will make, they will taste the best and that will light you up and make you happy and that is also good for your health.

Yes, and it’ll push you towards doing that again and doing that again. It’s like a movement

the time I had those awesome blueberries?

Let’s do that again.

okay. And one thing as well that I learned from that, that course that I took was that there’s other ways that we can optimize our happiness. And there’s a survey that will link in our in our show notes by this institute called the via Institute, and they have this character strength study that you can do.

And actually when I, when I first did this, I think it was pre pandemic and I noticed that, so it’s 25 qualities or character strengths, I think, and they basically ask, you answer a bunch of questions and then they rank your character strengths from like 1 to 25. And that was when I learned how low gratitude was on my list.

gratitude was on my list. Uh, giving, receiving?

No, literally

gratitude. in general.

gratitude was like the main, the main character. Um, well, not strength if it’s low on the list for me, but it, it was a good reminder to foster that more. And that was again, like right at the thick of me or the very beginning of the pandemic. And I realized why it was low on my list too, because part of my family dynamic has been, we kind of, A few of us bond over complaining about things.

That’s just been a way that we’ve done it. And so that obviously doesn’t foster gratitude. And, uh, in the pandemic, I needed gratitude so badly because it was so difficult in lockdown with a young child. And so I had a little gratitude journal and my daughter had one a little bit. And some days my entries were [00:14:00] as simple as cup of coffee in the morning or nice walk and like the simplest of things, but I just needed to recognize them.

But I’m curious what your top five values were.

well, I don’t think I paid for the full thing, so I’m not sure if I have twenty five.

No, I think it gives you the whole list.

there are, okay, yeah, yeah. do you have any guesses?

Oh, um, connection is up there maybe.

It’s not even listed, but maybe it’s as something else.

Oh, maybe, no, you’re

Okay, should we go like, one for one?

your top one? Uh, I think you’re gonna have to

I don’t, I think you’re, I think you’re gonna have

Is it love? Is it love?

my second too!

Uh, okay, what was your top?

I’m a big nerd, so it was love of

love of learning. Oh, nice. Uh, mine was

Oh my god, that’s so sweet. Of course. Of course it was kindness.

Do you, and it specifically says doing favors and good deeds for

others. classic Lauren. I love that.

then love, and then humor was my

You know, humor used to be my third. The first time I did this survey a couple years ago. Now humor is my fourth, which actually I think is a bit of growth for me.

Uh, because I was laughing away a lot of things

before. But my third one is perspective, which actually is described as being able to provide wise counsel to others, having ways of looking at the world that makes sense to oneself slash sense to oneself

So, that was interesting.

Perspective’s way down at number 10 for me.

That’s okay.

forgiveness is my number four. Yeah.

That’s fascinating. Where’s forgiveness for me?

Accepting other shortcomings, giving people [00:16:00] a second chance, and not being vengeful.

For you. Creativity is my fifth.

What’s

that’s great. sociAl intelligence.

that doesn’t surprise me

Being aware of the motives, feelings of others and oneself, knowing what to do to fit into different social situations.

It’s

Code switching.

you’re very good at masking. So

So, what we can

do, now that you know these things, this, you can lean into your top ones and that will also add more happiness to your life. Because if you think about it, um, like kindness, you get happiness out of being kind to others and doing things for others. Like it’s, it’s, it’s not just for those other people in a way.

Like you You, you fully enjoy that,

Yeah. Well, I think even, yeah, before we started recording today, I was like, yeah, it’s been like a bad brain week. And so instead of doing the things I, you know, quote unquote should do and like work, I was like, oh, I’m gonna do all these little tasks and I

got the drinks that Dev likes, it’s stocked in the fridge and stuff like that. And it was like that, like, I think, um, with ADHD too, it’s like, you’re kind of always chasing those little dopamine hits. , I know I’m someone who can always, um, Like find motivation and joy in doing something for someone else before myself.

And so sometimes I, I like lean into that to like, kind of fill, fill that happiness bucket

but that’s what

or like get that dopamine hit.

Yeah. So, love of learning. For me, I mean, I’m taking a Spanish class. I like to learn new things, like, try new things all the time. Random, I’ve, I’ve, I mean, maybe that’s a part, really, of the Sagittarian in me, but I’ll just, like, start a new hobby for a while.

Maybe I won’t stick with it, but I learned a bit about it, and then I move on to something else, right? Uh, humor as well, sharing memes, like, These, these are, there’s ways that you [00:18:00] can lean in to all your top character strengths and that will bring more happiness into your life.

 I don’t think I would have necessarily thought that. It’s like, I maybe thought, Oh, I need to like bring these other ones up because I’m already have that bucket.

I mean you can if you feel like you need to, like I, like I said I did with Gratitude. I mean, you can bring those up, but it’s unlikely that if it’s your 24th one, you’re gonna get it to number one.

Do you know what I mean? Like, the ones that are your top are somehow natural to you. You know, they

It’s like who you

it’s who you are. They come to you naturally.

So there’s ways that you can lean into those like creativity, humor, perspective. Those are things like perspective can be just doing this podcast and talk, you know what I mean? Talking about interesting topics or having a great conversation with a friend over a coffee, like, They’re simple things, but they can bring you happiness, especially when they hit on some of the things that are most valuable to you, right?

um, just out of curiosity, give me your, give me your last

two or your last

I was hoping you wouldn’t ask for that. Okay, so gratitude is still low, which I’m bummed about, but

I want your 24.

okay, but, but what I did bring up is appreciation of beauty and excellence. And that was that was one thing that I

Those are, those are cousins or

Yeah, they are exactly. So gratitude is still as my 23rd. My 24th one is zest.

Approaching life with excitement and energy. Not doing things half heartedly. Living life as an adventure. Feeling alive and activated. I mean, granted, I’m 44 years old and I do get tired. And I do have health issues that make me tired too.

But, but it’s because I think in the question when they ask you, they’re like, would someone describe you as,

Zesty?

or, or as like, and I was like, God, no. And I don’t want them to like bubbly. I know. I don’t want anyone to describe me as bubbly. So, so I think I just cringed at the, at the question and just automatically was like, no, no to

that. [00:20:00] Yeah.

Um, mine was prudence?

Prudence. What, how do they describe, define that

yeah. Being careful about one’s choices, not taking undue risks, not saying or doing things that might later be regretted. So,

I

I don’t know. And then, Not really surprising, self regulation was also down

one’s

Being disciplined, controlling one’s appetites and emotions.

So, get on this

Look, I think I’m regulated

think I’m regulated out here often, and then in here, less.

little more chaotic. Um, what were some of the things that you came up with when I asked you to think about what makes you happy?

things that you came up with when I asked you to think about what makes you happy? It’s, it’s the best. I love it.

That is so cute.

and then I had put like walks in the woods, big trees. Um, oh, you know, when you see two dogs meet and they get excited about each other and their butts start going, I had

tails wagon? Absolutely.

waking up in your water, I always find that to be like, just like such a, It doesn’t happen all the time, and when it does, I feel really happy about that.

, reality TV with pals. Uh, also, uh, gossip.

Yeah, Yeah, Uh, sports.

it. Yeah, that’s the, that’s why gossip’s there. , sports.

I put sports too, yeah.

watching. I mean, in a group, socially, if it’s the right people, I can have fun anywhere. Uh, I think.

Even watching sports

can be exciting and

But, uh, no playing. So yeah, tennis, obviously.[00:22:00]

those are, those are some

Yeah, I’ve got a lot of the same. I have writing on there as well, and reading in there as well, because again, I’m a big nerd. Time with people I love, learning new things, laughing. Um, shout out to Dev, I put being a silly goose, because we’ve talked about that before. Connection, good conversations, my kiddo, dogs, lots of things.

Yeah, and it doesn’t, I think we also have, we can also sometimes have an image of, happy having to be like a big thing, a big new thing you do or, or just something grand. But there’s so many little things that contribute to our happiness and do so more often and in bigger ways than we think.

little joys are, yeah, can be some of the best.

back to

Yeah, I think going back to what you said earlier about the, all the choice, I think chasing that bigger happiness can kind of get in the way of the little ones that are right in front of you, the connections with people, and even some of the, my favorite moments in their day are those, uh, connections with strangers where, I don’t know, you could kind of, like, every interaction’s, like, Can be an opportunity to make someone’s

make someone’s day

that kind of thing.

I guess see my number one

Yeah, exactly. Kindness. Lawrence is walking around making everybody happy. To make her happy

yeah, which is that rude?

It’s not at all.

that phrase? It’s like there’s no unselfish

act. I know. It’s like a selfish

what a prick

No.

Okay, so how do we, how do we be more happy?

How do we be more happy? Um, less choice in a way, or we have to recognize that more choice doesn’t mean more happiness, right? Um, and wanting, I guess I can’t really say wanting the right things, but maybe it’s more about not wanting the wrong things. Like there’s even been studies, which I found fascinating around, uh, like most people [00:24:00] probably think they’d like to win the lottery, There is, there’s research done on lottery winners where the vast majority are unhappier after winning the lottery because a lot of them like lose their money or go bankrupt or suddenly don’t know who to trust because friends and family are all reaching out.

Or there’s like addiction issues that come up. People lose money. ,

Oh, they have so much choice and then get immobilized by what to do with their money because they’re like I could do anything

Yeah, and so the research shows that most people are unhappier after winning the lottery, yet, you know, 70 percent or something of people still buy a lottery ticket every week,

you know?

oh, and I guess the other thing too would be leaning into who you are and the, the things that, uh, if you take this, uh, quiz,

Yes, the VA, the VA Character Institute

and yeah.

if you take

that

quiz, yeah, if you take that quiz and kind of leaning into the things you already know, probably intuitively about yourself,

yeah, and just know that we do, we do create, we do synthesize happiness in situations that we’re in. So no matter what situation you find yourself in,

There, you will find things within it, um, or you will, at least over time, come to find happiness in that.

And it’s funny , that, uh, study that I told you about where people could choose different prints, um, well there was a few different studies done, but one was done with amnesiacs, like people who literally could not remember which photo they had chosen, and they still, by far, ranked the one they didn’t even know they chose.

higher than the one they didn’t. So they couldn’t even remember which one they chose, but somewhere in their brain it was a right choice. It had registered that. Oh, that’s the one I chose. I like that one more. Um, which I just find fascinating.

Yeah, that’s

 . This week

. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Dear Queer.

If [00:26:00] you like this episode, please share it with someone you love. Thank you.

[Mic bleed]

This has been another episode of Dear Queer. Just a reminder, we are not actually experts. Any advice given should actually come from our experts who we will bring in from time to time.

Music brought to you by Sean Patrick Brennan, produced by myself, Lauren Hogarth, and your host as always, Alena Papayanis I’m cutting that.