Joy, happiness and the ability to choose

Joy is an experience. Happiness is a broader assessment of a life. Freedom of choice is one of its conditions, but not the only one.

In the famous study by Philip Brickman and his colleagues, big lottery winners, people with severe injuries and a control group were compared. The results turned out to be more complicated than the popular retelling that “everyone returns completely to their previous happiness”. Lottery winners did not become unconditionally happier in every respect, and people with paralysis retained the capacity for pleasure, though their well-being did not magically level with the control group.

The study became an early emblem of hedonic adaptation — the ability to get used to a change. That ability is considerable, but not unlimited. Living conditions still matter; the emotional system simply isn’t obliged to hold the intensity of day one forever.

A person can control his future and still be lonely, ill or without meaning. He can have limited freedom because of family, illness or circumstances and still consider his life a good one.

Lasting well-being is affected by health, close relationships, safety, sufficient income, a sense of meaning, belonging, the ability to act, and a life that matches one’s values.

Control matters because helplessness is draining. Being able to influence your schedule, work, housing and relationships makes life more predictable and lets you fix what is bad.

Complete control, however, is impossible. The attempt to secure it becomes a source of anxiety in its own right.

It makes more sense to aim for sufficient autonomy:

• have options;
• keep a reserve;
• be able to say no;
• take part in important decisions;
• avoid total dependence on one person or institution;
• accept the unavoidable share of uncertainty.

Happiness shouldn’t be confused with constant pleasure. A person can be content with his life and still feel grief, fatigue or boredom.

A good life doesn’t have to feel good all the time. Sometimes it includes a hard action precisely because the person chose something that matters.

Adaptation is clearest with housing. Moving into a bigger flat gives daily pleasure for the first few weeks: a room of your own, quiet, a view from the window. Three months later it stops being noticed and becomes background nobody mentions in conversation. Moving back, though, would bring the feeling straight back, now with a minus sign. The improvement stopped pleasing without ceasing to work: the difference between “I don’t notice it” and “it isn’t there” remains, it just only announces itself on loss.

So the advice “you’ll get used to it anyway, don’t chase it” is half wrong. Getting used to worse happens too — and usually costs more than getting used to better.