About the Pursuit of Happiness

The pursuit of happiness is a constant impulse for the humanity. Dan Gilbert, author of the book Stumbling on Happiness makes an interesting analysis about our capacity to synthesize our own happiness, specially when we have no choice but to accept our fate. A good example is the capacity of marriages to accept and live with the defects and mistakes of their spouses. Gilbert argues that this occurs when our brain can't find another possible exit to our situation than to accept it. This discovery leads us to think that we can be more happy when we can't change our current situation. Well... maybe, but maybe not.

A similar phenomenon to the one described by Dan Gilbert it's the term cognitive dissonance, first mentioned by the american psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1950's. When we have to face a situation or do something that is contrary to our beliefs, we tend to generate a new set of beliefs to support this situation, sometimes even making a u-turn from our previous set of beliefs.

But, what happens when the situation we face isn't just disgusting, but really aversive?
Another american psychologist, Martin Seligman, in 1967 carried out a series of experiments with dogs and electric shocks. He observed that when dogs had the possibility to escape from the shock, they recovered quickly after the experience. But when dogs weren't able to change their actual situation during the experiments, they ended whining and shaking instead of trying anything even in the situations where they could escape from the shocks. This was called Learned Helplessness. This phenomenon was observed also in cats, birds, babies and grown humans. When we face a lot of situations where we can't do anything, we tend to learn that we are incapable of overcoming future conflicts, even when sometimes we can.

Seligman also discovered something unexpected: some of the dogs who couldn't change their situation were able to recover quickly after the experiment. The mechanism behind this behavior was called resilience, or stress tolerance.
Resilience has been deeply researched since then, and it's been considered really important in overcoming adverse situations. It also seems to have some influence in our capacity to enjoy our actual lives. Maybe learning to be resilient it's one of the ways to achieve true happiness. After all, what we call adversity depends a lot of our subjective expectatives about life. In this age of desperation because the cellphone it's low in battery, this should be something to remember.