Translator: Michele Gianella Reviewer: Alessio Politi
I am a psychologist and a strategic therapist.
I have always been very much interested in happiness.
I can say that it has been my life's main driver
and probably what gave me the impetus to choose my job.
When I was 12,
I decided I'd study psychology
out of a desire to help people be happy.
I thought to myself: "Who doesn't want to be happy?".
Well, after 20 years’ of experience in psychotherapy
and 27,000 therapy sessions,
I have found out a lot of things.
Firstly, it is not true that everybody wants to be happy;
and, secondly, not all those who say they want to be happy
do the right things to actually achieve happiness.
So we need instruction for happiness.
Science, actually, has provided us with many such instructions,
it is something we dealt with for centuries
through poetry, philosophy,
sociology, psychology and science.
For example, we now know a lot more then ever about happiness.
And a relevant contribution in the field
comes from Martin E.P. Seligman’s "Positive Psychology"
which is a scientific psychology area
researching into how positive thinking
influences our physiology, our psychology
and ultimately our well-being.
And we know many things.
We know, for example,
that most of our happiness is based on three factors
that impact on our lives very differently.
For example, half of the impact on our perception of happiness
is the "constitutional happiness" factor,
that is to say, what we inherit
from our family and our family history.
It accounts for half of our happiness subjective perception.
There is another factor,
accounting for ten percent of our happiness,
that is represented by "life circumstances"
(e.g. being born in a rich and democratic country
is a positive circumstance for our happiness);
there is then another factor
accounting for the remaining 40 percent and is therefore very important;
it is under our control, depends on the choices we make:
whether we can come to term or not with a past that still hurts;
whether or not we succeed in building positive relationships
and live in positive environments;
whether we can nurture positive thoughts,
As a way of example, we know that being an optimist
reduces the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases,
it reduces our vulnerability to infectious diseases
and it even lowers the mortality rate.
Nonetheless, although we know what happens in our body
from a scientific, neuronal, hormonal standpoint
when we experience a positive emotion,
this still does not stop us from being unhappy.
So what does happiness need?
Clearly, awareness is not enough,
it is important but won't trigger change per se.
What makes change possible is something that passes through our emotions,
that goes deeply inside of us
and therefore changes us,
that helps us take a different perspective.
To do so, of course, we should have an idea
of what we, each of us, wants in order to be happy.
Because the first question we should ask ourselves is,
"what do I really need to feel, in this moment of life,
to feel truly happy?".
Happiness is not a permanent state, it is not a static dimension,
it is as fleeting, transient as all emotions.
So, we need to understand what we need
and how we really feel good about ourselves.
The idea that being rich and famous makes everybody happy
is just a fantasy, an illusion.
Each one of us has their own happiness,
and even a specific one of that moment;
so we should ask ourselves what we need in that moment
because we should also learn how to realise
that the things that used to make us happy in the past
will not necessarily make us happy now,
nor in the future;
Or, the things that make us happy
will not necessarily make somebody else happy, only ourselves.
Therefore, it is a task each one of us has to carry out;
but in order to do so, we need to believe first.
We should know that happiness
is also a principle, a rule,
a motivation, a perspective.
Essentially,
we should believe in happiness, in order to truly feel it.
Craving for happiness is not enough for it to magically happen.
Yet, there are many things
that stop us from achieving happiness,
and fears are among them.
One of mankind’s major fears, for example,
is disappointing the expectations of our significant others.
Another major daunting fear
is the fear of judgement,
the fear of being negatively judged by other people.
Or, the hardship of belonging to a minority:
because if we are happy,
we will always be fewer than those who are unhappy.
We ultimately need
a factor that helps us
to overcome these hindrances and embrace happiness.
This factor is courage.
You may say that this is a paradox! You do not need courage to be happy!
What does it take?
And if so, what kind of courage would you need to be happy?
Given what I said before, I won’t answer this with a definition,
but I want to start a short journey with you
and I want to do so with a story
that illustrates the sense of courage
I am talking about tonight.
There is a guy: just look at how happy his face is!
He’s a guy, a person who has a family, a job, several interests
and one passion: he loves safaris,
big hunting trips in Africa.
One day, he's having a safari with his group of friends,
and during a break is mesmerized
by a wonderful African sunset.
and walks away from his group,
and from his bus, where rifles and ammunitions are stored,
and moves towards a majestic tree to watch the sunset,
his eyes lost in the orange and red colours of Africa;
all of a sudden, he feels a presence,
turns his head and finds a lion before him.
He's disarmed, frightened;
out of the corner of his eye he looks at his companions
who have seen what had happened
and are trying to reach out for the ammunitions and the rifles
hoping to help him.
But he doesn’t love that,
he doesn’t want to be deemed the weak, vulnerable one,
he didn’t even want other people’s help,
so he just pretends there's no lion,
these fangs and jaws are not real
and, with that belief in mind, he walks towards his companions.
How does the story end?
Well, the guy ends up being eaten alive.
Let’s rewind our tape:
Same guy, same passion, same safari, same sunset -
and same lion.
He is there, in front of a lion,
frightened, disarmed, terrified,
looking at his friends with the corner of his eye;
his friends are grabbing the rifles, the ammunitions,
they want to help him,
they could have been in his place.
He stands still
and hardly breathes, in order not to move a muscle.
His legs are shaking like leaves and he tries to control them.
His whole life passes through his eyes,
the projects he made, those he still has to make,
the people he loves, the people he lost - everything.
He feels lost
when, all of a sudden, he hears an explosion and a thump.
His companions pointed at the lion and killed it.
He is safe, and can keep on enjoying his safari.
Now I am asking you:
"Who is the bravest one, in your opinion?
What is courage anyway?"
Someone will say
that the first guy is brave,
which implies the idea of courage as invulnerability,
absence of fear, absolute power.
Like those who do not accept their limits, their grief, their downfall
and think
they never need anybody’s help.
And how does the story end?
There is no good ending.
Then there is this second guy.
What kind of courage does he show?
A different kind of courage.
The courage of those who accept their limits,
who can tolerate impotence,
who have the strength to resist,
who believe in the possibility of having a chance,
who accepts other people’s help when it's his only chance.
And they resist.
So, how does the story end?
The man saves his own life
and is going to have many more chances to be happy.
What do we mean by this?
Let’s say, the courage to be happy
assumes the idea
that happiness isn't just a stream of good things that happen by themselves,
but the ability to overcome hardships,
challenge the pitfalls,
accept our own frailty,
tackle any problem in an optimistic, positive way
to eventually solve them.
Happiness is ultimately the ability to have fun
in the process of finding a solution,
Not just the solution per se, but the path, the entire journey.
It is not the absence of problems, because this is not realistic;
happiness is the whole process, problem and solution.
Happiness is not heaven sent,
It is the ability to enjoy the effort
and think that, beyond those hardships,
an amazing moment is there for me to live.
We are constantly confronted with lions in our lives,
we are faced with important challenges
we can choose to either avoid
or dare to tackle:
the job to pick,
the partner we will spend the rest of our lives with.
On which type of courage will our choices be based on?
Happiness should be the climate we give to our existence.
Thank you.
(Applause)