The Happiness-Lockdown Conundrum

Happiness never remained as a constant emotion in our lives. We, as homo sapiens have been chasing happiness to grab the whole of it, like a girl chasing a squirrel in the garden - it is there somewhere here, but mostly elusive. Happiness plays hide and seek in our lives.

The desire for constant happiness has been one of the most sought after and yet, the most elusive things for humankind in the last 315,000 years or even more. The pursuit of happiness is so human and universal, yet it is never ending.

The current lockdown situation that we are all in is ‘once in a lifetime event’ that could impact our mindsets and behaviours much more effectively than our routine experiences. How do we make sure that we gain out of this event?

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist and a holocaust survivor, while spending his time at the concentration camps, invented what he later called as ‘Logotherapy”. He believed that Life has meaning in all circumstances, even under the most stressful and desperate conditions. He also believed that those who are oriented towards a meaning are likely to survive from the camp and therefore, he advocated his fellow inmates to keep in their mind’s eye, either the images of their loved ones waiting to meet them outside once they get released, or the images of what they want to do or achieve in their lives once they get out of the camp.    

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian-American psychologist, worked on happiness and developed a concept called Flow, which is the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter: the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at a great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it. Here are some examples of flow experiences from his work - for a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last block on a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far: for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record: for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage etc. When you are in flow, you merge into the object or situation.

All of us would have seen this on the television a few times in the past - an athlete competing in a pole vault event, focusing her attention fully on the task ahead, swiftly running forward and taking a leap with the help of the poll and going up into the air miraculously, crossing the bar perpendicularly, and falling onto the cushions on the other side with grace and poise and breaking the record set before. The entire experience of starting the practice much before the competition and honing the skill to breaking the record is a flow experience for the athlete.

According to Mihaly, these experiences are achieved when psychic energy – simply put attention – is invested in realistic goals, and when skills match the opportunities for action.

Let us move back to our lockdown period once again.

I have been noticing that during this period, many of us have also REIGNITED some of our earlier interests and passions, or STARTED DOING something NEW – like dancing, singing, writing, yoga, cooking, physical exercises etc.  

I strongly believe that we can derive flow experiences out of such interests and passions if we apply what Viktor Frankl or Mihaly advocated us to do.

Applying the logotherapy, we can start seeing the images of ourselves achieving significant success in future – for example, if we have started dancing as a pastime activity, we may start seeing the image of ourselves as a great professional dancer dancing in front of large audience. Similarly, seeing the images of ourselves as a great Chef, a fitness freak, a world class writer, singer or a yoga practitioner etc. will help us to manage the current frustrations in a better manner and move forward into the future with greater optimism.

One more important step – if we also apply Mihaly’s research and keep practicing, even after the lockdown is lifted with attention and hyper-focus, we might become what we started seeing as an image in our mind’s eye and end up experiencing the great joy and happiness – similar to what the athlete in the poll-vault example experienced.

While the long-term plan as above sounds logical, what about our happiness right now in the shorter term?  Dr. Martin Seligman, the Father of Positive Psychology, recently tested the impact of various positive actions of humans and discovered that when we show improved altruism, kindness, gratitude, empathy, compassion etc. to other human beings we will experience a huge improvement in our feelings of well-being and happiness.

In effect, the solution to experiencing significant happiness in the shorter-term - during the lockdown and as we come out of it is to lend a helping hand to the needy, showing a little bit more compassion, helping the hungry in our own way, expressing more gratitude for all that we have been receiving from others, showing a little bit more courtesy and respect to our fellow human beings every day, everywhere etc.

I don’t think there is any need to put an extra effort to look for people to do all the above - they are there in the form of our security guards, helpers, maids, cleaners, drivers, milk vendors etc.

When we take these actions - the short term as well as the long term ones, we will not only be experiencing true happiness and joy in our daily lives but also freeing ourselves from the lockdown, although imposed by the government recently but conditioned internally by each of us and the society for centuries of societal existence.

Who said happiness is elusive! It is right in front of us. Go Grab it!