Hard-Wiring Happiness

Why success and failure are exactly the same, or how process supersedes perfection.

We’ve talked a lot about the origins of happiness and the various ways people go about pursuing it. And while all these lofty concepts and creative approaches have their place, it’s in the sore absence of happiness that we fully realize the importance of specific, powerful tools and steps to bringing all the theoretical stuff to life.

In this excellent talk at Columbia University, Srikumar Rao (of Are You Ready To Succeed? fame) offers precisely the kind of cognitive toolkit to combat our ingrained preoccupation with success/fail outcomes standing between us and our own happiness.

You have spent your entire life learning to be unhappy. And the way we learn to be unhappy is by buying into a particular mental models. [...] The problem isn’t that we have mental models, the problem is that we don’t know we have mental models, we think that’s the way the world works.

Rao’s points about absolutism as the deadliest poison of emotional well-being poke brilliant holes in the very fabric of Western culture and its obsession with control, which yields only frustration and failed expectation.

We live in a world where what we think of, what we invest in, is the outcome. There is an alternative. You invest in the process.

Rao’s thinking reminds us of the slightly more life-coachish approach by Gay Hendricks in The Big Leap, a similar effort to dispell all the myths we keep perpetuating as we stand in the way of our own success and continue looking for happiness outside of ourselves.

Passion exists in you, not in the job.

Amen.

via TED Best of the Web

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 5:30 am in culture, psychology, science and was tagged culture, happiness, philosophy, psychology, TED, video.

Hard-Wiring Happiness – Srikumar Rao on combatting the mental modes that hinder our happiness http://ow.ly/1gVZX

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

brainpicker on March 11th, 2010 at 6:35 am

RT @brainpicker: Hard-Wiring Happiness – Srikumar Rao on combatting the mental modes that hinder our happiness http://ow.ly/1gVZX

Revkin on March 11th, 2010 at 6:37 am

Boost happiness. RT @brainpicker: Srikumar Rao on combatting the mental modes that hinder our happiness http://ow.ly/1gVZX

michelleakeith on March 11th, 2010 at 6:52 am

RT @brainpicker: Hard-Wiring Happiness – Srikumar Rao on combatting the mental modes that hinder our happiness http://ow.ly/1gVZX [VIDEO]

dogoodhq on March 11th, 2010 at 6:54 am

RT@brainpicker Hard-Wiring Happiness – Srikumar Rao on combating the mental modes that hinder our happiness http://ow.ly/1gVZX

AmyUllman on March 11th, 2010 at 6:56 am

FaisalSethi on March 11th, 2010 at 6:56 am

jdevylder on March 11th, 2010 at 7:29 am

DU5TB1N on March 11th, 2010 at 7:29 am

… just ask yourself, is this a journey I want to take? Does this take me to a place I want to spend time? Srikumar Rao http://ow.ly/1gVZX

jdevylder on March 11th, 2010 at 7:32 am

‘Passion exists in you, not in the job.’ Srikumar Rao: Hard-Wiring Happiness http://bit.ly/9qK1z0 | Oh yes!

brsma on March 11th, 2010 at 7:34 am

Looking for happiness, this man might be able to help you find it. http://ow.ly/1gVZX #fb #green #meetings Apply where needed.

MeetGreen on March 11th, 2010 at 7:42 am

RT @jdevylder: … just ask yourself, is this a journey I want to take? Does this take me to a place I want to spend time? Srikumar Rao http://ow.ly/1gVZX

callmeshub on March 11th, 2010 at 8:11 am

Why success & failure are exactly the same, or how process supersedes perfection? Hard-Wiring Happiness http://ow.ly/1q9p0g RT @brainpicker

hemantmmehta on March 11th, 2010 at 8:50 am

D’accord::: ‘Passion exists in you, not in the job.’ Srikumar Rao: Hard-Wiring Happiness http://bit.ly/9qK1z0 | Oh yes! /via @brsma

lucither on March 11th, 2010 at 1:25 pm

If you missed it earlier ? Hard-Wiring Happiness – Srikumar Rao on combatting the mental modes that hinder our happiness http://ow.ly/1hjLr

brainpicker on March 11th, 2010 at 1:30 pm

RT @MeetGreen: Looking for happiness, this man might be able to help you find it. http://ow.ly/1gVZX #fb #green #meetings Apply where needed.

hgroom on March 11th, 2010 at 2:11 pm

RT @brainpicker Hard-Wiring Happiness – Srikumar Rao on combatting the mental modes that hinder our happiness http://ow.ly/1hjLr

bonjman on March 11th, 2010 at 2:18 pm

RT @brainpicker Hard-Wiring Happiness http://ow.ly/1q9p0g

mymindonbooks on March 11th, 2010 at 7:08 pm

Hard-Wiring Happiness | Brain Pickings: Notify me of follow-up comments via email. « Crowdfunding for http://url4.eu/1lH7W

sponso_RING on March 12th, 2010 at 2:58 am

marcoiacoboni on March 12th, 2010 at 7:34 am

I’ve been reading a great book (with perhaps a less great title) called ‘Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill’ by Matthieu Ricard and it’s a fantastic read about the interdependence of psychology, happiness and well, some buddhism Definitely recommend.

Paulina on March 17th, 2010 at 5:53 am

Paulina,

I’ve been a longtime fan of Ricard’s TED talk and read the book last year — excellent indeed. I highly recommend it as well — in fact, I’ve given it as a gift twice now, and counting.