Everyone talks about happiness. Books, conferences, coaching, mentoring… are some of the products that people can buy today in the supermarkets of happiness. Most of them tend to be a compendium of beautiful phrases, motivational advice and aphorisms to frame that may be motivational while you read them but lack practical usefulness in the long term. The problem is that happiness is something so complex that it is difficult to research it.
Daniel Kahneman, one of the most influential psychologists of our time, reveals in the final chapters of the book what led him to win the Nobel Prize. current science findings on well-being and happiness
Basically, Kahneman’s studies reveal that there is no single concept of happiness. This psychologist tells us about the existence of two “I”: the “I that experiences” and the “I that remembers”. Both are of great importance for the way we value our happiness.
Although the experiencing self is responsible for recording the sensations we have of events as they happen, the remembering self gives meaning to those experiences.
To illustrate both concepts, give the following example:
“A comment I heard from an audience member after a lecture illustrates the difficulty of distinguishing memories from experiences. He told how he had been listening ecstatically to a long symphony recorded on a record that was scratched towards the end and produced a loud noise, and how that disastrous ending ruined the whole experience.
But the experience was not really ruined, just the memory of it. The viewer’s reality had been really pleasing for most of the time; However, the noise at the end meant that the viewer’s overall assessment of the experience would have been scandalous.
The “I” that pleasantly enjoyed the course of the symphony at the present moment is the “I that experiences.” On the other hand, the “I” that considered the experience unpleasant is the “I that remembers.”
The logic of memory
In this example, Kahneman shows the dilemma between direct experience and memory. Likewise, it shows how different these two systems of happiness are, which are satisfied with different elements.
The “experiencing self” takes into account day-to-day emotions in the present moment. How you have felt most of the day, the excitement of a meeting with someone you love, the comfort of a nap or the release of endorphins when playing sports.
The “remembering self” measures general satisfaction with our lives. When someone asks us how we are, how are the holidays, work or simply we take stock of our life. This is a narrator who values specific experiences based on what we consider relevant in life.
Another example that shows the difference between the two is the following: Let’s imagine that on our next vacation we know that at the end of the vacation period all our photos will be destroyed, and we will be administered an amnesia drug so that we will not remember anything. Now, would you choose the same vacation?
If we think about it in terms of time, then we will get an answer. And if we think about it in terms of memories, we will get another answer. Why do we choose the vacations we choose? is a problem that brings us back to a choice between the two selves.
Wellbeing has more than one time
As the reader can see, Happiness is presented as a complex and problematic concept in light of these studies. As Kahnemam says:
“In the last ten years we have learned many new things about happiness. But we have also learned that the word happiness does not have a single meaning and should not be used as it is. Sometimes scientific progress leaves us more perplexed than we were before.”
For this reason, in this article there are no tips, phrases or lessons about what makes our lives more rewarding. Only relevant scientific findings that should make us more critical of authors who sell quick and easy solutions to lead a life of satisfaction and happiness.
