Hacking Happiness (27 page)

At the end of the year, the child could have a documentary of what he wanted to accomplish and what actually did happen. Now, to me—you know, you say, well, so what?—I think psychologically, it’s a very important thing, because you are putting the responsibility for learning on the child. They are responsible for what they’re going to learn.
¹⁸

Kids are just like adults. We all crave autonomy with regard to pursuing what we love. Letting children understand the concept of flow means we’re enabling kids to teach themselves.

The H(app)athon Project

My article in Mashable “The Value of a Happiness Economy” is what inspired this book. The article also inspired the nonprofit organization I founded called the H(app)athon Project. I have never experienced more creative flow than I did while working on these projects. I’ll work on this book or H(app)athon starting at seven thirty in the morning and barely look up from my computer until around two p.m., when I realize I haven’t eaten. So many of my core skills are utilized in these projects (researching, writing, networking, brainstorming) that I would do them for free.

I wanted to unpack our work with the H(app)athon Project as it combines a number of issues related to flow and positive psychology, along with sensors and happiness metrics. The Project is a reflection of the themes and premise of this book—that we’re worth more than wealth.

I realize we haven’t met (yet), but that’s how I feel about you, by the way. I think you have inherent value, and the goal of creating the H(app)athon Project was to try to provide free tools to help people discover their value and then be encouraged to help others do the same.

The main tool we’re providing is a free app that gets to know you via an interactive survey you take on your phone using active and passive data. More details follow, and you can go to www.happathon.com right now, in a spirit of action, to start learning what makes you tick and how you can get happier.

Basically, we’re hoping we can help match what brings you flow to an opportunity to increase your personal well-being or volunteer to help others. We’re “connecting happiness to action, one phone, one heart, and one city at a time” and you’re welcome to join us in our work. After you read these details, you can learn more about the power of altruism in the next chapter, a powerful tool we’re using for leverage for the H(app)athon Project to change the world for good.

Here’s information we’ve been using to tell people about the H(app)athon Project:

The Problem

The GDP has led the world to focus on monetary wealth as the primary driver of happiness. People judge themselves or others based on the narrow lens of their worth defined by money. Human dignity is lost when we’re forced to focus on stockpiling/consuming for ourselves at the expense of others.

How Can This Problem Be Addressed?

The science of happiness shows that long-term, intrinsic happiness (well-being) is increased by engaging in an action that inspires flow (optimal experience) and helping others (altruism).

How Will H(app)athon Help?

We are “connecting happiness to action, one phone, one heart, and one city at a time” to increase people’s well-being in an atmosphere of transparent civic engagement. Our free H(app)athon app (available on any smartphone) will help people find dignity by recognizing their strengths and connecting them to action that increases their happiness and changes the world for good.

What We’re Building and How

We’ve created a free app that can measure a person’s well-being and actions as reflected by answers to our survey and the sensors in their smartphone. The personal happiness indicator (PHI) score that results is a reflection of their identity as quantified by data. By revealing a picture of who they are not based solely on wealth, we believe we’ll increase their happiness.

The Next Step

Beyond simply revealing a person’s PHI score, we’re also going to provide suggestions for people to do good in order to increase their happiness. Science shows that people’s happiness increases when they’re given chances to help others. What we’re providing in the mix is the unique new use of sensor data in mobile phones to identify a person’s identity so as to better match people to volunteer opportunities that will increase their happiness. Nonprofits or other organizations get optimized, energized volunteers pre-screened for work that matches their needs.

Our Workshops

We’ve also created free workshops any organization can do that teach about the issues of economics, the science of happiness, and emerging technology. We have already done dozens of workshops around the world.

Our Traction

We’ve been featured in
USA Today
, the
Guardian
,
Forbes
(three times),
Fast Company
, BBC News, and Mashable. Our advisory committee has more than thirty people from organizations like the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, MIT, Salesforce.com, the University of Cambridge, and University of Pennsylvania, along with dozens of other experts.

Our Goals

The anonymized data from the surveys we have on our site now will form the predictive algorithms we’re putting into our app. We’re creating the matching criteria for people’s PHI scores so
they’ll have opportunities for action and happiness after they use our app. We’re planning dozens of workshops and have scores of videos on our site. We’re giving people a free tool to recognize their individualized awesomeness not focused on money so they can change the world and Get H(app)y at the same time.

  16  

ALTRUISM

The best way to convince a skeptic that you are trustworthy and generous is to be trustworthy and generous.
¹

STEVEN PINKER

F
OCUS ONLY ON YOURSELF
or help others. Two choices, a ton of motives.

Altruism is a tricky concept. In the moment you’re helping someone else, you’re likely not thinking “I’m being altruistic right now” but “I’d better keep that toddler from walking into the street before she gets hurt.” There are numerous reasons we may be compassionate or empathetic. Evidence shows that genetic makeup and learned behavior can also influence one’s propensity to be altruistic.
²

But let’s be clear: Helping others means you also help yourself. There are physiological benefits for individuals when they’re compassionate. There are sustainable monetary benefits for organizations utilizing shared value. Countries measuring citizens based on happiness indicators get a deeper, quantitative view of their citizens than they would if they measured only GDP.

Helping just yourself means you benefit others primarily through transactional means. You buy things and help a local store or economy. You’re pleasant to others if it advances your needs. Are you evil? Not at all. Are you invested in others? Not at all. Does that affect your reputation? Yes, it does.

Psychologists use a term called prosocial behavior. This includes actions that benefit others outside of the intentions of people performing the actions. Altruism is prosocial but is also characterized by the selfless nature of behavior. Here’s how the Altruistic Personality and Prosocial Behavior Institute clarifies this distinction:

For the purpose of our study, we prefer a definition that relies on objective, measurable criteria. We characterize a behavior as altruistic when:

1. it is directed toward helping another;

2. it involves a high risk or sacrifice to the actor;

3. it is accomplished by no external reward;

4. it is voluntary.

Let’s also be clear that compassion takes risk, and not just that people may think you’re a softie. The real trial comes when you reflect on others’ needs and feel their pain. It’s hard to experience suffering. But we’re built to help others and we have the capacity to improve personal altruism through practice.

If you’re taking measure of your own life, it will benefit you to experiment with altruistic actions to see how it affects your health and well-being. On a global scale, leveraging our positive actions is a renewable resource that is scientifically proven to help both the giver and the receiver. In the case of flow, you have to participate in an activity to experience its benefits. Altruism and compassion function in similar ways. So why not get hooked on happiness?

Good Intentions

Forty percent of what makes us happy is based on our behavior. Sonja Lyubomirsky, a thought leader in the positive psychology movement, notes this finding in her book,
The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want
:

What makes up this 40 percent? Besides our genes and the situations that we confront, there is one critical thing left: our behavior. Thus the key to happiness lies
not
in changing our genetic makeup (which is impossible) and
not
in changing our circumstances (i.e., seeking wealth or attractiveness or better colleagues, which is usually impractical), but in our daily intentional activities.
³

Lyubomirsky has worked with thousands of men and women, observing behaviors of happy people to determine what actions drive their outlooks. One of her better-known studies focuses on a series of “happiness interventions” she conducted with two sets of participants. Both groups of people were asked to commit acts of kindness throughout the week (donating blood, feeding a stranger’s parking meter) and keep “kindness reports” documenting their actions.

The first group was instructed to perform these acts throughout the week, while the second group did them all in one day. Both groups experienced a significant elevation in their happiness, although the people performing all their acts of kindness in one day had a larger increase. While this means the timing or regularity of committing these acts produced varied results, Lyubomirsky notes that “our study was the first to show that a strategy to increase kind behaviors is an effective way to elevate happiness.”
⁴

It makes sense that we get used to an act of kindness and it may lose its luster. This involves the idea of habituating a behavior in positive psychology, but this can be easily overcome. Walk a dif
ferent route to work to meet new people, or go to the Random Acts of Kindness website to get inspired with specific ideas you can emulate, like this one:

GAS STATION

I was standing in line this morning at the gas station and there was a young mother with her child attempting to buy gas. She ran her debit card for five dollars and it was declined. She tried again to run her card for three dollars, but it was declined again. She left. I stood there heartbroken for this young lady. I didn’t know her or her situation, but it touched me. I went to the door, and she was putting her child in the car seat. I told her to get ten dollars in gas and I would take care of it. I am thankful and fortunate to be able to do this small deed.
⁵

Little deeds add up. And the fact that you feel better after doing them doesn’t mean you were being selfish.

The Opportunity for Altruism

John Helliwell is professor emeritus at the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia and was coauthor of the United Nations’ first
World Happiness Report
. I had the opportunity to interview Helliwell about his research regarding happiness and social networks as well as some of his ideas on altruism.

He told me about recent research he’d been doing regarding happiness and inequality that revolved around gambling. As happiness is affected based on whether we’re alone, in a group of strangers, or with friends, Helliwell and his team set up experiments where people were gambling alone or with partners to gauge levels of happiness. There were a number of interesting results based on when people experienced happiness for other
people and their winnings as compared to their own gambling successes.

The most powerful insight, however, from the study came when people were given an opportunity for altruism. During the gambling experiments, John placed a table in the corner of the room with a basket for donations. A small sign noted that the people conducting the study were collecting money for a charity that would buy antimalaria nets to save lives. The goal was to see if people would share their gambling winnings if given the opportunity. Here’s how Helliwell describes the results of this experiment: