The Line Below the Bottom Line
Posted March 5, 2015
By Dr. Robert Biswas Diener
@biswasdiener
There are many reasons people decide to attend university. Some are following in the family footsteps. Others are hoping to gain the skills and knowledge to create a desirable life. Still others simply enjoy the process of learning. Regardless of your specific rationale for being a student now there is likely one long-term motivation that underscores all others: happiness.
Even for students who hope to make a pile of money as a result of their college career it is still happiness that they are aiming for. I think of happiness as the “line below the bottom line.” Although it isn’t the only desirable goal for life it is certainly a powerful universal motivator. For as important as happiness is to most people it is sometimes surprising how poorly we go about its pursuit.
You are certainly familiar with the list of common obstacles to real happiness for students: jumping through university hoops, balancing studying with a gratifying social life, maintaining your health, the boring instructor, commuting….. the list goes on. The good news is that happiness is a well-researched topic and there are a few, simple changes you can make to improve your well-being. Here are 4 suggestions:
1. START APPRECIATING THE HAPPINESS YOU ALREADY HAVE
As a happiness researcher, people often ask me about the “secret to happiness.” I am certain they expect me to say “a good marriage” or “meditate for one hour a day” as if there is a single trick or circumstance that will guarantee eternal bliss. I typically disappoint by saying “start appreciating the happiness you already have.” That’s right, in our research the vast majority of people report being mildly happy most of the time. Not perfectly happy, and not all the time. Chances are you are already experiencing many positive events—you get a great parking spot, you like the paper you wrote, you received a smile from an attractive person, you finally declared a major, you are reading an interesting book. Many studies of people who track daily gratitude, who count daily kindnesses, and who savor positive moments have all revealed that these mental habits promote well-being. So don’t wait, start noticing all the ways you are happy now and let yourself take more pleasure from them.
2. SET REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS OF HAPPINESS
Did you know that, where achievement is concerned, there is a magic number to happiness? It is 8. Students who report being an 8 out of 10 (rather than a 9 or 10 out of 10) on life satisfaction actually perform better at school. They have better class attendance, are more conscientious about homework and have higher GPAs! It turns out that you shouldn’t shoot for perfect, permanent happiness. Being pretty happy is good enough.
3. CONNECT
The late psychologist Chris Peterson, of the University of Michigan summed up research on happiness by saying “other people matter.” It’s true: humans are social creatures and we derive much of our happiness from social support, social interactions, and helping others. My colleagues and I discovered that it is a nearly universal phenomenon that spending money on other people pays back personal happiness dividends. Similarly, people report feeling better when they are in group situations. This is especially important to remember in the context of higher education. There can be pressure to always place study before sport or finals before friendship. Both are important.
4. BUSY ISN’T THE NEW COOL
You may have noticed that it has recently become en vogue to talk about how busy everyone is. People say “I am swamped” or “I only got 3 hours of sleep last night” as a badge of honor. A cluttered life isn’t cool; it’s a threat to health and well-being. Students who refuse to take a break, students who believe they perform better while multi-tasking, and students who over schedule are all missing easy opportunities to improve their own quality of life. Try it.
The reason all this discussion of happiness is important is because students can sometimes lose sight of this highly worthwhile pursuit. It can be very easy for students to defer happiness as an emotional finish line that happens at the end of life. The logic is this: tonight I will sacrifice sleep so I can stay up late studying. If I do that well maybe I will get into a good graduate school. If I slave away in grad school I can get an awesome career. If I get that career then, at long last, I will have fulfillment, income, and—hopefully—some time on the weekends to enjoy. That’s a lot of deferred gratification. That is, to be honest, a focus on the bottom line. Not the line below the bottom line.
[Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener is the senior editor of the Noba Project and author of more than 50 publications on happiness and other positive topics. His latest book is The Upside of Your Dark Side.]
