Success and Happiness - II

I try to find a bit more about happiness and, presto, Chemistry rears its ugly head. As usual. I mean, I escape a BSc in Chemistry only to land in Chemical Engineering so I should sort of have expected it, I suppose. Especially since escaping into an MBA in Finance only landed me in a fertilizer company and back to dealing in calculations relating to chemical reactions all over again!

So, apparently, there are these hormones which are related to happiness. Whether they are only the body's messengers of happiness or whether they are the cause for why you feel happy, I am sort of unsure. But, yeah, these chemicals - serotonin, endorphins, dopamine and oxytocin - are apparently what give you the highs of joy.

Though, really speaking, this serotonin appears to be more a anti-unhappiness hormone. Way back in my MBA days, there was this motivational theory that said that there were Health Factors and Motivational factors in any work environment. Health factors were those which demotivated by their absence but their presence would not motivate. I mean, like, if you are a tech whiz in Chennai and if your office does not have a functioning A/c, you'd quite likely quit asap. But does a job advertisement saying "Fully air-conditioned office" make you want to queue up for a job? This serotonin is somewhat like that to happiness. If its level in your body is low, you feel depressed and unhappy; the presence does not make you actively happy. (Yeah, like shade in a hot sun, IF you have just been depressed and get to the point of not being depressed, it could feel like a joy at that time.)

Yes, from what I understand, treatment for depression IS treatment to up the serotonin levels. AND depression due to naturally low serotonin levels IS a PHYSICAL condition and HAS to be treated by medication. You don't just tell the chap that it is 'all in the mind', so buck up and think positive AND expect that person to be a ray of sunshine from then on.

Now, it is one thing to say that a person like me, who starts off with the uncanny ability to derive  different answers every time he adds two and two, is not going to become a Ramanujam in mathematics. But it is quite another to say that I will never narrow down my answers to the one right figure no matter how long I try. In other words, the fact that I am prone to depression does not mean that I can in no way REDUCE the frequency, duration or extent to which I get depressed. NOR does the fact that I am not naturally prone to depression mean that I cannot mess up my life enough to GET to the point of being permanently depressed.

Google will tell you that exposure to sunlight, some foods, exercise yada yada will help you push up your serotonin levels. (Apparently tryptophan-rich foods, in tandem with carbs, improves serotonin levels. At last! I KNOW why we TamBrams are so fond of curd rice - dairy products being a source of tryptophan!) AND, yes, reducing stress and anxiety in your life is a great help to avert low serotonin levels.

The quest for success, then, IS a possible source of anxiety and stress. For one, operating well outside your comfort levels is always stressful. Understand that growth happens when you venture outside your comfort levels...but THAT should be in a manner which eventually EXTENDS the ambit of your comfort zone. For a classical singer to sing playback in the movies is one thing; for a tone-deaf person to try to become a concert singer is another! Doing things that you are good at doing, and like doing, does not leave you feeling anxious and stressed.

To the extent that the goals that you set for yourself are within your control - as in things that YOU yourself do and where the achievement is measurable by yourself - the stress levels are lesser. You can assess how well you have written a code to do a certain task; comes to giving a speech, it is the reaction of the audience that determines how well you have done it and, so, success depends not on you but on others.

Setting far-out goals without setting intermediate markers to measure progress is an easy way to depression. It is all very well to set yourself a target of becoming a CEO by 45. But how do you know you are satisfactorily on your way at 30, if you have set no intermediate target? THAT way lies anxiety, that way lies depression.

If the quest for success is not to also become the path to unhappiness, it is important to set your goals in an area where you expect to be in your comfort zone sooner of later; where you have multiple goals - one set of personal improvement which gives you controllable achievements and one set of external goals; and to have your goals bite-sized so that you can have a sense of achievement along the way and not merely at the destination.

Or, of course, you can tell Life, "I am just along for the ride!" If you could do that, though, you'd have abandoned this post as soon as you saw the title!