Happiness by Design: finding pleasure and purpose in everyday life

Podcast produced by Lee Millam What makes us happy? It is not just how we think but how we act, says Paul Dolan, Professor of Behavioural Science in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and author of Happiness by Design. Professor Paul Dolan: For me happiness is in our experiences of life. Things that we feel day to day, moment to moment. And [in the book] I talk about pleasure and purpose. OK, so my name is Paul Dolan, I’m at London School of Economics and my book is called ‘Happiness by Design - Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life’. So, happy lives are ones that contain some balance; it’s not the same for everybody and it is not in equal measures. But some kind of balance between things that we find fun on the one hand and things that we find fulfilling on the other. Music: Abstract Nostalgic Fractals Systems – Floating In A Lake Of Happiness PD: Well, it is a subjective experience. I think everything ultimately matters because it makes us feel better, so I can describe to you the things I think are pleasurable and the things that I find purposeful.  And I can also give you a good sense of how much I find them pleasurable and purposeful.  And equally, of course, things that I find painful and things that I find pointless, so I think we are now getting a better insight into the quantities and natures of those elements.  Music: Abstract Nostalgic Fractals Systems – Floating In A Lake Of Happiness Vox pop: Happiness for me is a very ethereal thing, I think. By that I mean that it is very difficult to say what is, and it can be different, at different stages of my life. But in essence, happiness for me, as I have grown older, is quite a few intangible things, things which make me think that life is worth it, so it is spending time with the people I want to be with, it’s not just living from moment to moment but actually just being in the moment and doing the things that are most important. So the places are really important for me, and often, actually, it is later on that you realise the happy times; well I am getting better at that. PD: We are getting many observations on many people over many years, and there seems to be something sensible coming through from the answers people give us. We get association with some things which you would expect them to be associated with, you know, poverty makes people more miserable but being rich doesn’t make people happy.   So there are some nice insights coming through from this data. Time we spend with other people that makes us feel nice, time spent on trains and on tubes and on buses, not so nice Music: Blue Ducks – Floss Suffers From Gamma Radiation Vox pop: The things that make me happy are: spending time with my friends and family, going out for dinner, going to watch my football team play football, playing with my cat. PD: Well I think how we use our time is absolutely critical, it’s the scarcest thing we have got right?  The few moments we have been talking now, or I have been talking now, are moments closer to death and it is time I won’t ever get back, so I think it is incumbent on us all to think about how we use that time and just reorient some of it away from things that we find painful and pointless. And spend a bit more time, you know, with things that we find pleasurable and purposeful which would include spending time with people we like being with; will include spending a bit more time outdoors, maybe listening to music, all of these things, I think most use of us know if we stop and think for a moment, would make us feel happier. The interesting question is why we don’t do more of it? And helping others too , makes us feel nice, so all these things that we get good feedback for if we paid attention to those experiences but one of the reasons why we don’t do those things most is we don’t pay attention to those experiences as much as we might,