Richard Hogan: This is the secret to happiness

Happiness is an elusive thing, but we often have to be intentional if we are going to meet it

42. That’s the meaning of life, according to Douglas Adams. 47. That’s the answer to when we feel life is mostly meaningless. Age 47.2, to be more exact, according to recent research is when we feel the nadir of our happiness and contentment on our life arch.

 What is it about our mid, to late forties, that makes us feel disconnected and lonely? Is it simply the thinning of our hair, the loss of our looks, the ‘sadness of (our) changing face,’ as Yeats put it? Is it a superficial thing? Or is it a deeper more pervasive existential crisis that engulfs us as we move towards old age? 

When you think about your forties, what springs to mind? More financial concerns, children moving into adolescents and relying less on you and perhaps challenging authority more. Maybe you think about your own parents ageing, and all that brings with it. Maybe you lament the loss of old friends that were incredibly important earlier in your life? Is it isolation? Whatever the reason for this low point in our wellbeing, it is vitally important that we are aware that waiting for us in our forties are many traps that we must avoid if we are to sidestep this potential mid-life melancholia.

According to research carried out by the US’s National Bureau of Economic Research, people in their 50s are happier than those in their 40’s and those in their 60s are happier still. It seems like it probably should be the other way around. But what does it mean for those of us, like me, in our 40s? Buckle up and just hold on while we hit the dip in the rollercoaster? I don’t think so. Let’s do something about it. 

Happiness is an elusive thing, but we often have to be intentional if we are going to meet it. I have many conversations in my clinic about happiness and how to achieve it. Of course, it’s not a constant state. That would be exhausting and you wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate those sad moments in Shakespeare or Dylan’s love ballads without being able to tap into the ‘still sad music of humanity’. 

So, the first thing is to acknowledge happiness is transient just like sadness. As we come out of lockdown and into our new life, we have to be more intentional about our happiness. We have to bring more positive behaviours into our lives to ensure we don’t have a prolonged dip in our well-being. 

When I’m having a conversation with a client in my clinic about this topic, I often start by asking them, empirically what makes them unhappy? 

This is a very important thing to think about. If we don’t analyse this we are prisoners to our behaviours. Which is never going to make us happy. We need the hard evidence to know what are the aspects of our lives that bring us unhappiness and so to avoid them. This sounds like a very basic point, and perhaps it is, but you would be surprised how many of us get caught doing things we know are not good for us and yet keep engaging in those activities.

I often hear clients say things like, ‘I hate when I shout at my children, I feel terrible afterwards’, ‘I really hate myself when I say things that make we sound weak’, or ‘I get so angry with myself because I’m such a ‘yes’ person, I’m sick of pleasing everyone but myself'. As you can see from these examples, there is a paradigm running underneath that needs to be shifted and re-authored. 

When we know something brings us unhappiness or steals or joy we must listen to that empirical evidence and avoid it like something that doesn’t make us happy! Then I look at what makes the client feel good. Generally, I hear the same things. Connected to family and friends. Feeling connected to themselves and their partner. Having time away from the family and being who they were before they became lost in the dance of family life. A healthy family system allows for you to be a part of it and separate from it. And finding space for yourself is not a selfish thing. In my experience, mothers really struggle with this. 

Their entire identity becomes trapped in the family. Their sense of self, is caught in being ‘the good daughter’ or ‘the good wife’ and it can become all-consuming and unhealthy. Men can also allow their important friendships disappear without fighting for them. So being more intentional about the things that make you happy and removing the things that make you unhappy will mean you can potentially avoid falling into this particular midlife trap. We all have evidence of what makes us happy and what makes us unhappy. Those moments when we feel connected to ourselves and others are golden ones. Do more of them, so that 47.2 will mean the same as 42.