Focusing on happiness can make you unhappy. Do this instead

Americans long to be happy. A lot of this drive is wrapped up in consumerism, with many of today’s brands trying to sell happiness. The positive-thinking movement is also fueling the focus, with the abundance theory and other self-help genres naming happiness as the objective, says Monica C. Parker, author of The Power of Wonder: The Extraordinary Emotion That Will Change the Way You Live, Learn, and Lead.



“In America, the pursuit of happiness is pretty much baked into the whole creation of the nation,” she says. “It has become something of an obsession.”



The problem is that we aren’t very good at knowing what makes us happy, a misjudgment that’s called “affective forecasting,” says Parker. “As humans, we ‘miswant’ a lot of things that we have been conditioned to believe will make us happier than we actually do,” she says. “We all have a happiness baseline. One of the challenges is that when we get something that makes us happy, it’s often only for a very short period of time. Then, we generally go back to our baseline.”



Focusing solely on happiness can make you unhappy. Parker says negative and mixed emotions serve a purpose. “They are a way to broaden our emotional vocabulary, which helps us call up a greater variety of coping skills,” she says. “In fact, people with higher emotional granularity—or emodiversity—use more positive coping mechanisms and recover more quickly from stress.”



Instead of being in the constant pursuit of happiness, Parker recommends chasing wonder, which is more achievable. “Wonder is something of a shapeshifter,” she says. “There’s wonder the verb, which is the wonder we associate with curiosity. Then there’s wonder than noun, which would be perhaps something that might inspire awe.”



Parker says her goal is to link those two concepts. “I define wonder as an emotional experience that starts with openness and then leads into curiosity and absorption,” she says. “It acts as a cycle because the more you experience each one of these components, the more likely you are in the future to experience them again because it creates new neural pathways and a new mindset.”



How to Chase Wonder



While some people have a natural sense of wonder, it’s a state and a trait and can be cultivated. Chasing wonder is about changing your mindset to see the little elements of wonder in your day. Parker advocates for a mindset called “small cells.”



“When we are in the presence of something that makes us feel like a small component of a larger system, it makes our ego feel smaller, and it makes our problems feel smaller,” she says. “In return, it encourages us to engage with people in the world around us in a different way.”



Feeling small promotes prosocial emotion, which is a helping emotion, says Parker. “The idea of your needs being smaller makes you more humble, more empathetic, and more generous,” she says. “It creates a plastic state in our brain, and what is implanted in it is something positive that says that we are only a small part of a bigger system.”



Cultivate Slow Thoughts



To chase wonder, find ways that trigger the feeling of being small. While these moments happen naturally, like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, waiting for them to arrive takes time and can be rare. Instead, Parker suggests slowing down and observing the everyday elements in your life that can provide a sense of wonder. This is easier said than done.



“When you’re rushed, it’s quite hard to do,” says Parker. “We live in a world that’s very busy, and we tend to feel that we always have to be on.”



When you’re rushed, you’re leaning into your preexisting heuristics, which is getting from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. “I don’t want to see anything in my way that’s going to stop that,” says Parker. “We really don’t make time for wonder. But if we really look at what exists in our sphere, it’s hard not to see the wonder that is there.”



Having intentional slow thoughts slows you down and helps you see the wonder that exists in your sphere. Some slow thought activities include meditation, narrative journaling, prayer, and gratitude practices. Any activities that help create attentional control and slow the chattering rumination mind that is going all the time, says Parker.



Find Novelty



Another way to create a wonder mindset is through novelty. “The brain notices newness,” says Parker. “When we are exposed to something new, we study the details of it more closely. So, the more that we can introduce novelty into our mind, the more that we will notice the wonder that exists in it.”



It’s helpful if that novelty has an intellectual component. For example, taking a walk in a new environment can help you see wonder. Parker recommends going on a “wonder walk.” In research done at the University of California, San Francisco, one group of people were told to go on a regular walk. The second was also sent on a walk with a one-sentence primer: “Look for things that give you a sense of wonder.” The group that took the regular walk came back and had moderate benefits. However, they were short-lived because they were ruminating on the walk about other things and not focused on the presence of wonder. The wonder walkers came back and had benefits of lower stress hormones for the next week.



“Wonder walking primes your brain,” explains Parker. “When you tell your brain ‘I want to find something,’ it commits more cognitive energy toward finding it.”



Chasing wonder creates a bigger emotional vocabulary. “We tend to default to a simple set of emotions,” says Parker. “There’s also a lot of evidence that shows simply having a bigger emotional vocabulary, or a bigger emotional portfolio, helps us with resiliency.”



While being happy is an honorable goal, wonder can provide a sense of balance that helps you appreciate the moments of joy that enter your life. Instead of pursuing happiness, consider making wonder your ultimate goal.