Happiness is a complex feeling, difficult to define and differentiate from other positive emotions. It reflects our satisfaction with life ; it is the emotion that guides us in the search for what makes us feel good (like the pleasure of a good book) or gives meaning to existence (like the joy of parents who look ecstatic at their little one despite the tiredness of the breeding).

Happiness is an unattainable chimera for some and a conspicuous construct spoken of until full, according to others. It also seems to be an ephemeral emotion.

Last March, the UN released its 'Report on Happiness in the World' for 2019 in which it puts a face to this sentiment in 156 countries. Spain approves (6.3 out of 10) and occupies the 30th place . We do not go wrong in this annual contest of world happiness.

However, in September, another study has sent "our joy to a well." According to the 'Ipsos Global Advisor on Global Happiness 2019' (although it is necessary to take a breath to pronounce it it is a more modest study of only 28 countries), Spain is the most unhappy country in Europe and the penultimate worldwide - ahead only of Argentina - with 46% of the population who declare themselves happy.

What happened? Are we not happy anymore? Why have we spent six months of being a moderately happy country to fall into the abyss of unhappiness? One answer to these questions may hide in the fact that feeling happy also has its trick (and its trap) at the mental level.

HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY?

Try to do this experiment. Answer these questions:

Version 1: Do you feel happy with your life in general? How many times have you been with your friends last month?

Version 2: How many times have you been with your friends last month? Do you feel happy with your life in general?

Do you notice any difference? yes? no? If you are an average human being, in the first version your feeling of life satisfaction will not be influenced by the fact that you have been very or little related to your friendships last month.

However, in the second version (where the focus is placed on your social relationships), the feeling of happiness will be disrupted because it is subject to the number of meetings with your friends. To be more exact, it increases or decreases by 66%, according to a study conducted with university students by Professor F. Strack in which he asked about the number of appointments they had last month to see their correlation with their degree of wellness.

What is this about? Because people have difficulty assessing life satisfaction in a global way and, therefore, it will depend on the point at which the focus is placed so that life is dyed dark gray or becomes multicolored.

If your reference is health and, right now you are not in your best stage (by the way, I wish you a quick recovery), your happiness thermometer will fall many points, despite the fact that the rest of your life aspects are unbeatable Or, on the contrary, if you are in love, the rest does not matter then "with you bread and onion".

FOCUS EFFECT

As you see where you put the eye, you put your happiness (or unhappiness). This is due to the heuristic or illusion of focus - also called the focus effect - that makes our mind overvalue a specific aspect when evaluating or making forecasts and ignores the rest of the variables that could favor a more global vision and, therefore, So much more objective of reality.

The UN study this year focused on happiness and community, exactly in "the way communities interact with each other, whether in schools, workplaces, neighborhoods or on social networks, has effects deep in world happiness, "according to John Helliwell, co-editor of the report.

Focusing on the social network itself generates much more satisfaction for the Spaniards than doing it in the use of technology - which was the theme of Ipsos - above all, the interaction with technological devices and their impact on the well-being of people, especially those teenagers. Reading its results it follows that, if your focus is on the use of digital media, your sense of well-being tends to be less than if you are focused on relationships with your friends.

It is not that our mind is badly designed and lives in illusion or despair capriciously according to the wind that blows. Heuristic thoughts are types of rapid reasoning (almost always unconscious) that our brain has developed throughout its evolution to synthesize reality and be able to decide easily and effectively for adaptive purposes. They are called "shortcuts of the mind . "

The focus heuristic makes sense in terms of mental energy savings: when something works well it tends to be encouraged, but it is also adaptive when something does not work because it drives us to action and to continue moving forward in the search for greater satisfaction, surprisingly, a Moderate degree of unhappiness helps to evolve.

So that happiness does not become something volatile that you never reach, I suggest that you look every day for three positive things that have happened to you in different areas of your life because remember: having a single focus, blur!

Mistakes that make us unhappy

Drop down

The problem with focus bias is that it is greatly influenced by stereotypes and social prejudices. If your life is focused on achieving success (our culture loves the winners) every time you suffer a stumble your sense of life satisfaction will be altered in its entirety. And you will falsely believe again, if you don't correct it, that to be happy you need to achieve your goals every day (no matter how much this gives you a feeling of well-being).

The focus effect is very reductionist and does not contemplate the nuances so it can become a real problem if you make your decisions or value your life considering a single point of view (be it the couple, the job, the money, the children or leaving holidays).

Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for combining economics and psychology with respect to decision-making, argues that we have two 'I's', one is the one who remembers, the one who invites us to think about our life, and another is the one who experiences that focuses on the well-being / discomfort of each moment.

The questions about happiness are aimed at the self that remembers and as such tending to make mistakes, does not seem a good witness of what really happens in our life. It is better to look at what really happens to us.

ISABEL SERRANO-ROSA is a director and psychologist at EnPositivoSí.

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