How hard should you be trying to be happier?

No one wants to be unhappy so there is little debate in the benefits of moving from an unhappy state to a happier one. But is this true if you are already basically happy (say you are moderately happy or content)? In other words, if you consider yourself already happy should you continue to consume self-help books, DVDs and seminars in hopes of moving up another wrung on the happiness ladder? Are there any downsides to being even more happy? On the surface these seem like silly and rhetorical questions but with the happiness/self-help movement being a billion dollar business (and sites like ours dedicating a fair amount of focus to improving happiness) much of this money is being spent by people who would describe themselves as already happy but desiring to be more so.

According to an article in Newsweek, a growing number of psychologists are exploring whether the quest for happiness is overrated. One team of researchers has been conducting some large-scale, data-heavy studies to test the point. After eliminating people who were not happy, they separated two groups of subjects into what they called the "Blissful" and the "Contented."

Not surprisingly, the scientists found that Blissful people were more likely than the merely Contented to have rich and stable intimate relationships. They had predicted this, figuring that people who are less happy about their lives in general would be more motivated to shake things up, which could mean a roaming eye. People who are extremely happy, by contrast, may construct more positive illusions about their partners, which create and sustain enduring relationships, which in turn make people even happier.

But the findings about education and work and financial success were not so intuitive. For example, in one part of the study focusing only on students, the merely Contented were much more conscientious about their schooling: they skipped fewer classes and had better grades. By the time they hit the working world, the merely Contented were more highly educated, and they went on to be more successful in their careers than the Blissful. They also brought home much fatter paychecks. Indeed, in one substudy, college freshmen with the most cheerful dispositions ended up 19 years later, at the age of 37, making about $8,000 less than their drearier counterparts.

The researchers could be right and striving for increased happiness may result in smaller financial rewards. But at what cost do the Contented get their additional income? Perhaps the reason Blissful paychecks are less than the Contented is that instead of working late, skipping family events and being stressed out about what is happening at the office, the Blissful were with their families. This would certainly explain why the Blissful have richer and more stable intimate relationships.

Then again it's possible that the researchers and Newsweek have confused causation and correlation. Perhaps the reason that the Blissful are so happy is because of the rich and stable relationships they have as opposed to the other way around.

Despite our questioning of the Newsweek article and the study that it was based upon, we do agree with its final assessment. "...if the quest for a constant state of happiness becomes obsessive, hedonistic thrill seeking [then] seeking a perfect state of bliss is still perfectionism, after all, and that kind of seeking rarely makes anyone happy." This is why we at LifeTwo like the work of Dr. Martin Seligman, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar and other positive psychologists. Among other things, one of the big tenets of positive psychology is gratitude. It's hard to imagine someone grounded enough to be constantly reminding themselves to be grateful to at the same time fall into the need-to-have-ever-more-happiness-at-any-expense trap.