JUNE 8 2019 LISTENER 41
G
ET
TY(^) IM
AG
ES
A
udience-participation time. Think about
how many nice things happened to you in
the past 24 hours. Mentally run through
these events and take a moment to reflect
on what made them pleasant, how strongly posi-
tive they felt and what you did afterwards.
You might have heard that you “need” three
good things to undo the harm to your well-being
of every not-so-good thing. Forget it – that three-
to-one ratio is an artefact of how it’s calculated, a
product of mathematics. There’s no need to count
the roses as you smell them.
But those good events are important. Paul Jose, a
colleague in the Victoria University of Wellington
psychology department, argues that a good rule of
thumb for peak happiness is to max-
imise the positive things that happen
to you and minimise the bad. Words to
live by.
But in themselves they are not
enough. Unsurprisingly, what you do
with these experiences is also a vital part
of the equation.
Ever met someone for whom life
seems a doddle? They have great kids,
win on the occasional scratchie, don’t
have to worry about where the next
mortgage payment is coming from, and
yet ... they’re miserable sods? Not to mention the
killjoy, the person who stifles your pleasure in the
things that happen to you. Almost as annoying,
perhaps, are those at the other end of the con-
tinuum: life has handed them lemons and they
continue to chirpily (and honestly) proclaim with a
smile, “It could be worse.”
Jose, like many psychological researchers, has
done his time trying to understand the bad stuff –
depression and whatnot. One thing he and a lot of
others around the world have looked at is the role
that such things as rumination play in depression.
Rumination is that shoe banging repeatedly
in the tumble dryer of our minds at 3am; that
Words to live by
Maximising the
positive is just part
of the formula for a
happy existence.
haunting idea we can’t seem to let
go of. It’s a big oversimplification,
but women generally ruminate
more than men, and women
tend to develop depression more
than men, so maybe one of the
mechanisms that leads to depression
is rumination.
But Jose has drunk
from the well of positive
psychology, seen the
light and turned from the
dark side to try to under-
stand not what makes us
sad, but how to maximise
happiness.
If ruminating can make
us sadder, might we find
balance in mechanisms
for enhancing happiness?
The answer is savour-
ing – returning to the good things
that have happened to you recently,
which is what I hope you did at the
start of this column.
Some of us, however (the killjoys,
for instance), are just low-savourers,
with a tendency to dampen positive
experiences. “Nothing lasts forever,”
they say, or, “It wasn’t as good as I
hoped it would be.”
But there are also the high-trait
savourers, people who pause to enjoy
something and can’t wait to share
what’s happened.
S
avouring does work. Jose’s
research shows two things:
positive events make us happier
(not rocket science); and savouring
explains a portion of our good cheer.
In other words, we should take time
to smell the roses.
But high-savourers are also gener-
ally happier regardless of what’s
happening to them.
So, suppress the inner killjoy and
fill your well-being prescription
for today. Find time to reflect on
something good (Who did it involve?
What emotions did it inspire?) and
“capitalise” on it by sharing it with
someone or holding on to it for the
rest of the day.
It doesn’t have to be big, and it
doesn’t have to be something that
happened to you. It could just be
feeling good. Pay attention when
something good happens and feel
grateful for it; give it meaning. And
focus on the positive – imagine that
good things lie ahead.
Here endeth the (evidence-based)
lesson. l
by Marc Wilson
PSYCHOLOGY
There’s no need to
count the roses as
you smell them.
Paul Jose: specialises
in happiness.