Scott Adams, the Philosophy

Here are a few words of wisdom from Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon. This is actually very insightful:

Suppose humans were born with magical buttons on their foreheads. When someone else pushes your button, it makes you very happy. But like tickling, it only works when someone else presses it. Imagine it's easy to use. You just reach over, press it once, and the other person becomes wildly happy for a few minutes.

What would happen in such a world?

You could imagine that everyone in the world would be happy just about all the time. People would make agreements with each other to push each other's buttons on a regular basis, thus guaranteeing the complete and utter happiness of all humans.

No, I can't imagine that either.

The first thing that would happen is that we'd create some rules of etiquette saying you can't press anyone's button without explicit permission. That makes sense, since sometimes you need to get some work done, and happiness can make you lose focus. You wouldn't want people making you happy against your wishes.

The next thing that would happen is that people would realize they can sell the button-pushing service. People would stop giving it away for free. You'd be begging people to press your button and it would just seem pathetic. You might get some takers for a brief button-pushing fling, but it would get tiresome to push another person's button every few minutes all day.

Perhaps some people would give their button-pushing services away for free, to anyone who asked. Let's call those people generous, or as they would become known in this hypothetical world: crazy sluts.

Button pushing would become an issue of power and politics within relationships and within business. The rich and famous would get their buttons pushed all day long, while the lonely would fantasize about how great that would be.

I can't think of any imaginary situation in which long term happiness could come from other people. The best you can hope for is that other people won't thwart your efforts to make yourself happy.

I like the point he is making: happiness only comes from within. But Scott Adams's homily shouldn't be taken too seriously. I also like the insight that our greatest happiness comes when we interact with others. We are a social species and that "happiness button" is really within us and gets "pushed" when we find satisfactory relationships and practice the Golden Rule and give of ourselves to others.

Another thing to realize is that we each have our own unique level of happiness. I'm a pretty contented soul. But others are restless their whole lives trying to find something that they feel eludes them. They search for some happiness that they know is "out there". But in reality the only happiness you can really have is when you accept who you are and your situation. (I don't mean become a patsy and let people walk all over you, but don't expect life to be handed to you on a silver platter. You can work to improve your situation, but happiness isn't really tied to material things.)

I really enjoy the book Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert. You can see the gist of the book in a TED talk linked here. The most important point that Gilbert makes is that our "set point" for happiness is very stable. When I was in sixth grade I was devastated when the teacher read us a story about a boy with 6 days until he went blind. I felt great anguish about the horror that I knew it must be to go from a world of ability to a world of disability. But Gilbert points out that people who lose sight or limbs generally get back to their natural state of happiness in about six months. There's a good evolutionary reason for this: if we can't emotionally overcome disappointments, we wouldn't reproduce. So the message is: the happiness you are born with is the happiness you will carry through life. For some that is a tragedy because they feel a lack of happiness. For others, it means you are generally happy-go-lucky your whole life. It is simply the luck of the draw.

I guess that if you are born unhappy, then you are like Scott Adams' character, you have a button that needs pushing, and pushing fairly frequently. You can't bully people into pushing it, and you can't cajole them into it, and you blackmail them into it. You can only use social relationships to get that "joy juice" of happiness if you are feeling low. You need to get out and interact with people, give of yourself, be involved, and you will get a nice feedback. That's your medicine. And the good news is that you can self administer it (unless you are a depressive and dysfunctional).