Health, Hope, & Harmony: The 3 Pillars of Happiness
From China to America, San Diego to Maine, and red state to blue state, we widely agree on one thing: Happiness is the ultimate end. Most would say it’s the only end we chase simply for itself. All other things should, hopefully, be a means to happiness.
The disagreement begins at what the hell “happiness” even means. What does happiness look like? Is it just being giddy all the time? How much money do I need? What role do genetics play? What do the happiest people do every day?
I’ve spent the last couple years intensely focused on making sense of the idea of happiness. In that time, many truths have made themselves known. But none are more important than these:
While I claimed happiness as my goal in life, I had no clue what that truly meant.
Happiness is not an emotion. It’s a complex mix of circumstances, behaviors, and genetic predispositions.
The river of happiness has 3 main tributaries: Health, Harmony, & Hope.
This article zooms in on point 3. It’s also the first article in a series that delivers the foundations of happiness for ALL humans. You. Me. The trolls lurking in the comments section. Everybody.
Don’t believe me? I’ll tell you what: If you stay with me to the end and I still haven’t convinced you, email me for a free prize that’ll make you happier (if you use it regularly).
I should mention that there’s an intentional flow here that extends from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
I’ll start with the aspect of happiness that’s closest to our most basic needs. Then, we’ll move up the pyramid toward social and psychological needs.
Let’s start with health before moving on to harmony and, finally, hope.
Happiness Source #1: Health
In the happiness literature “health” is an umbrella term that includes physical health and mental health. In Maslow’s terms, basic physiological needs are part of this. But it also stretches into financial security, safety, and general wellbeing.
The WHO defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
It’s a little nerdy and wordy, but I like it.
Health isn’t just not being sick. It’s not being sick and being of sound mind and body. Mobility, mental acuity, access to decent food, health care, all that. Maybe an ab muscle and a Lexus would be nice. (I wouldn’t know.)
For context, consider the impact that physical health has on happiness in older populations. One meta-analysis noted that “higher physical capability” (grip-strength, mobility, etc.) was a heavy determinant of one’s happiness.
A 10-year study found you didn’t even have to test an older person’s health. You could simply ask them how healthy they felt. Participants who rated their health highly were also the happiest. In fact, no other factor better explained life satisfaction.
This makes sense. Stop and consider how many things extend from being healthy and able-bodied. Right up front, especially in old age, is the absence of chronic pain. Logically, it’s hard to be happy in the face of constant hurt.
On top of this is the link between physical capacity and independence. The ability to get up and walk outside allows you to stay socially connected and do what you enjoy. The list is endless.
It’s worth noting that money has direct implications for health. Most notably, there’s a clear connection between financial security and decent healthcare. (At 45 I can envision a long list of costly prescriptions someday.) It doesn’t stop there. Money buys high-quality food, comfortable housing, weather-appropriate clothes, and so much more.
It’s important to avoid the trap of equating wealth with happiness. But having enough money to feel secure is important. In other words, financial deprivation is a source of insecurity and, by extension, unhappiness.
It’s a diminishing returns problem: Once you get out of poverty, money doesn’t buy happiness the way it used to.
At this point, a critical truth starts to emerge: Happiness depends just as much on avoiding undesirable conditions as achieving desirable ones. (I talk about this avoidance mindset in detail in Article #2.)
Happiness Source #2: Harmony
Harmony is best described as emotional balance. But it’s nuanced.
Balance is achieved when we’re aligned with our relationships, culture, and environment. So it includes family, friends, and community. In a way, money too.
We normally associate harmony with music. Different notes or chords are ordered into an arrangement that’s (hopefully) pleasing, if not sublime.
There are, of course, exceptions. Harmony for Imagine Dragons means banging drums like you caught them breaking into your house.
Harmony in life isn’t all that different from harmony in music. We’re all trying to find the combination of notes that work for us, that make us feel content. When we hit the right notes, they combine to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. That “whole” is our individual sense of harmony.
There are myriad note combinations that can create harmony in life. They include:
Relationships (family, friendship, connectivity)
Belonging (community, group membership, identity)
Affection (intimacy, love, attachment)
Self-respect (sense of worth and dignity)
Recognition (external validation, appreciation)
Achievement (self-efficacy, goal attainment)
Ideally, we hit all of these notes all of the time—a veritable symphony of the good life.
Intimate love within our families +
high-quality friendships +
a sense of belonging in our community +
a healthy amount of self-esteem, self-worth, and accomplishment +
recognition from others that those accomplishments are valuable
= harmony.
How hard could all of that be?
It would appear, unfortunately, that it’s pretty hard. In fact, harmony is increasingly elusive in modern society. Or, put another way, our culture and technology lend themselves well to dissonance.
We used old folks to add context last time. Let’s flip the age pyramid and pick on the youths.
There’s a well-documented decline in youth happiness, which has a list of competing explanations. There’s also a defined spike in youth anxiety. The negative effects of digital media environments has steadily risen to the top of that list. (For a few examples, see here, here, and here.)
Excessive digital and social media consumption is linked to social isolation. On top of that, even when it’s used to connect with others, it often invites perfectionism, social comparison, and insecurity.
These are significant hits to harmony, since relationships, community, affection, recognition, and self-respect all suffer.
Older generations enjoy rants about “the kids these days.” But modern media’s impact on harmony goes beyond Gen Z.
One meta-analysis on the effects of streaming culture noted that binging habits can cause social isolation and depression. To be fair, the effect was strongest in the 18-30 age group. But all age groups saw risk increases.
The combination of screens, digital media, and streaming culture is linked to the decline in social event attendance. This is another trend that affects all generations, but young people the most.
Translation: Partying is in a funk. And not a good funk. In this case, we DON’T want the funk.
Technology’s penchant for isolation heavily influences the harmony aspect of happiness. Evidence consistently says that strong relationships and social support are critical to our wellbeing. This is because our connections make us feel protected, integrated, and confident.
I’m arguing, along with others, that it behooves all of us to take a look at our time-spending habits. If our activities are solitary, our support system takes a hit. When that happens, we feel the imbalance and our sense of harmony suffers accordingly.
Finally, there’s balance with our environment. I’m not just referring here to ecology. I’m talking about cultivating a healthy relationship with money and our material world.
We noted that healthy finances are a pillar of security, which is an important part of well-being. But when income growth turns into avarice and material excess, money morphs from angel to demon.
A meta-analysis of 258 studies found that materialism has a significant and negative impact on life satisfaction. Another review of 131 studies discovered that money spent on experiences brought far more happiness than money spent on stuff. This is referred to as the “experiential advantage.”
We intuitively know why this is the case. Wealth as a means to stuff creates an insatiable passion for consumption and a long ride on the hedonic treadmill. We feel good about acquiring something, a brief sniff of satisfaction. Then the dopamine hit of an Amazon box wears off, short-lived.
Experiences, on the other hand, are usually social, gratifying, and enduring. How many times have you told a cool story about something you bought? It’s almost always about something you did. (Bonus: You sound much less like an asshole.)
Buddhism says that craving, or what they call tanha (thirst), is a key source of human suffering. The more we want, the more imbalanced we are. And the further we get from harmony.
Happiness Source #3: Hope
Hope might be the toughest source of happiness to define and harness. In Maslow’s language, we’re talking about self-actualization. But this means different things to different people. It’s also likely to change as we grow.
A good way to describe hope is through life itself. DNA is the fundamental building block of all life. What makes it remarkable is that it has a very focused purpose: self-replication. That’s the end all, be all for DNA. To accomplish that, it lays out very specific instructions for each organism and cell.
Put simply, DNA has a unique purpose and drive. Our goal, if we’re to have hope, is to find the same thing in ourselves.
Why do you do what you do every day? What are your core values and do you live in concert with them? What (or who) do you aspire to be? Are you optimistic about your future?
Our sense of hope is propped up on our responses to these questions. (Until recently I wouldn’t have had great answers. At times, they still need work.)
That’s why “self-actualization” is so variable—our definition reflects our values, identity markers and personal experiences.
There are, however, a few aspects of hope that are universal.
Knowledge/Wisdom
Self-improvement
Spirituality (both religious and non-religious)
There’s a reason why all religions and philosophies tout the virtue of knowledge.
Buddhists speak of prajna while muslims learn of hikma. For the ancient Greeks it was sophia. Proverbs 4:7 says that acquiring wisdom is the highest of all virtues. They all know how important wisdom is for hope.
While these schools of thought are different, their takes on wisdom overlap. Ask questions. Think, study, and think again. Reflect in silence. Gather intellectual humility. Learn the power of experience. Learn also the power of failure.
These are the common threads that link all philosophical approaches to knowledge. Time and again, modern research has confirmed what’s scribbled on papyrus scrolls. (Well, except the parts on slavery, women, property, cohabitation, and…okay, basically everything else.)
A person’s desire to grow—AKA their personal growth initiative (PGI) —is directly linked to happiness. One meta-analysis concluded that PGI adds to subjective well-being by inducing growth in critical areas like self-improvement, planning, and readiness for change.
In short, people dedicated to growth are more resilient, self-confident, resourceful, and adaptable. They strive for a better life and, importantly, believe that it’s within reach.
It’s also why lifelong learners are the happiest among us. They have curiosity. They have a hunger for knowledge. They have drive, meaning, and purpose.
They have hope.
The ancients also agreed on the centrality of spiritual pursuits. Again, modern science has repeatedly vindicated them. (Well, except for the parts on polytheism, monotheism, sky daddy, geocentrism…I think you get it.)
Researchers have amassed mounds of data showing that frequent religious attendance boosts happiness. The weight of faith on happiness only grew when frequent practice was thrown into the mix.
Pew’s Global Survey found that “actively religious” Americans are more likely than less-active and non-religious Americans to describe themselves as “very happy” (33% vs. 27% vs. 25%).
Religion, however, does not have a monopoly over spirituality. Secular spirituality works wonders, too. (Full disclosure: I am not religious and pretty much Godless.)
Non-religious spiritual practice has a happiness benefit of its own. This is why the “spiritual but not religious” person is often happier than one who identifies with a faith but doesn’t practice it. In fact, one meta-analysis found that spirituality was more impactful than religiosity for happiness.
This means that religious affiliation isn’t enough. Hope feeds on spiritual practice, whether it’s religious or secular. Either way, it’s hard to deny the largest truth delivered by these studies: Hope starts with believing in something bigger than yourself.
Therein lies the problem for so many people in Western society, who wear realism and skepticism as a badge of courage (as I used to). In rejecting a “higher power” they place nothing above themselves.
Their life is the ultimate focus and their mind is the locus of control. Admitting otherwise is capitulation to a higher power and thus a personal failure.
I’ll defer here to Ryan Holiday in Stillness is the Key:
There is no stillness to the mind that thinks of nothing but itself, nor will there ever be peace for the body and spirit that follow their every urge and value nothing but themselves. The progress of science and technology is essential. But for many of us moderns, it has come at the cost of losing the capacity for awe and for acknowledging forces beyond our comprehension. It has deprived us of the ability to access spiritual stillness and piety.
As I write, the assassination of Charlie Kirk is just 5 days old. While I won’t pretend to agree with so many of his words, the impact of this event isn’t lost on me. On the same day, Americans experienced yet another school shooting in Colorado.
Many people in our society feel this is an unending abyss. Their despair grows each day. This, they believe, is a hopeless society.
They’re partly right. Our society is bereft of hope. But it is far from hopeless.
Don’t believe me? Go to almost any elementary school on any given day. Go to a youth soccer game. Scour the earth and you’ll see good triumphs over evil everywhere everyday. We’ve just stopped noticing.
Don’t take my word for it. Go. Look. Hope is what you’ll find.
What you can do
Avoid making the world bigger than it is, which is overwhelming. Just work on you. This is a good starting place since it’s mostly under your control.
Here are a few tips to start you off on the right path:
Find your “why.” Why do you do what you do each day? Who is it that you want to be? What are your core values and how do you stay true to them? Developing honest answers to these questions will feed your sense of hope. Then, turn your why and core values into a drive for self-improvement.
Spot any places where life is out of balance. Is your time stacked too heavily on individual pursuits rather than social ones? Are material pursuits becoming a distraction from what’s truly important? Harmony is an ongoing process that’s never done.
Believe in something bigger than yourself. The surrendering of control isn’t a failure. Quite the opposite. It takes strength. Not a God-fearing person? Me either. Find faith elsewhere. The uniformity of nature. The connectedness of all things. Consistent meditation. Whatever. This is the heart of hope.
Make a plan to move each day and in every way possible. Walk. Run. Sweat. Lift heavy things. Then be still.
These are broad suggestions, but they’re actionable. I hope this enhances your quest for health, hope, and harmony.
I know it has helped mine.
Ready for the next article on the main sources of unhappiness? Go HERE* for the 12 minute read.