MUSINGS The happy button

The happy button

You can’t switch on happiness by pressing a single button, but press three and you’ll be one step closer

The Circling Fin

Fin Keegan

Most of us are so skint right now, and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, that we had better find some other route to happiness than buying stuff. Above all else, the Celtic Tiger clarified that objects, no matter their consecrating brand, cannot make us happier. Indeed, many people find themselves burdened still by material whims that became onerous obligations.

So, in the absence of a ‘happy button’ at the back of our heads, how can we become happier while poorer?

Join a choir.

Let me explain. Researchers at the University of Rochester in the US have identified three psychological needs that seem to be common to all of us and that, if attended to regularly, make for a happier life.

The first of these needs is autonomy. The average human being likes to feel that they are exercising free will when it comes to what they do. This is why it can be so painful to have our weekends taken up with tasks we didn’t choose to do but that somebody else has decided for us. Conversely, the opportunity to do things the way we want and when we want is refreshing to the soul.

The second of the core needs is competence. Mastery of a musical instrument or a second language are examples. We all feel better when we stretch ourselves and add something new to our repertoire.

Our third human need is social, what our friends in Rochester call ‘relatedness’. ‘No man is an island’ as John Donne put it. Unless we are one of those few souls who are naturally hermetic and given to weeks at a stretch in our own company, we are wired to seek and enjoy the company of others.

This is where the choir comes in. Singing in harmony is one activity that unites all three needs. Participants contribute of their own free will (autonomy) while developing musical skill (competence) and gaining the social return of creating art in the intimate company of their colleagues (relatedness).

The on-switch for human happiness has yet to be discovered, despite the best efforts of the pharmaceutical industry. And long may it continue. If there were a happy button, we would inevitably have to pay something – taxes, obedience, allegiance – in order to have it pressed. But attending to the three core needs these psychologists have defined for us seems to do the trick better than any artificial mechanism.

In the meantime, get thee to the singing gallery – or am I not already preaching to the choir?

Fin Keegan is a writer based in Westport. This column is based on his weekly radio essay, heard on WRFM and CRC radio, and online at thecirclingfin.com.