Hello I'm Darren Brown and I think we could rethink our concepts of happiness.
I think we're sold an idea that we should be believing in ourselves and setting our goals and thinking positively, but the reality is that thinking positively can actually have quite a negative effect.
Optimism as an idea doesn't serve us very well when things go badly.
Seeing bad situations in a positive light and looking for the good that that's okay.
That goes back to the Stoics.
But when we're feeling like we've failed that's the problem.
And the problem with optimism is that it just tells us if things don't go right that we've failed that we haven't believed in ourselves enough and we should blame ourselves because there's nowhere else to go and that's fundamentally where it's wrong.
You need a system that works for you when things aren't going well that's the real test of whether something holds up or not.
There was a psychologist called Daniel Kahneman who came up with this idea of the experiencing self and the remembering self like two sorts of cells at work within us.
The idea is that for example if you are given the choice between going on a roller coaster and having a fun afternoon at a theme park versus looking after a sick relative, which one's going to make you happier?
The chances are you'd think what I'll do I'm gonna go on the theme park.
So, you're experiencing self is being catered to by the experience of you know happiness and excitement but you're remembering self, which is the other part of you, will look back on the experience looking after your sick relative actually as a more meaningful experience.
So, the chances are you'll take with you more of a sense of happiness and satisfaction from doing that.
So, we have a terrible understanding of what actually fulfills us.
I think an interesting and thought experiment which was given by a stoic, a modern stoic called William Irvin, is imagine that you woke up one day and everybody had disappeared from the world.
So, there were still buildings and cars and everything but there were no people. Everyone had gone…it’s just you.
What changes in terms of the sort of things that you require for yourself?
You wouldn't bother having a big great big house to go into. From now on you can just live in any house.
You could just go and you know walk in and live wherever you like.
You'd probably find something that was just comfortable and practical.
You obviously wouldn't bother with fancy clothes.
You wouldn't bother with so many things.
And then when you've really followed that thought through, it's amazing how much we acquire and want only to impress other people.
Even if we don't feel with that sort of person.
So rather than just wanting things that we don't have, which are probably not going to be very good for us anyway…shifting our desires so we want the things that we already have.
Stoicism was born in a time of strife.
There's lots of war and lots of reasons why you'd want to hang on to a feeling of tranquility.
So, what they said, which is such phenomenally good advice, is there are things in your life that you're in control of and then there are things in your life you are not in control of.
The only things you are in control of they said, and this is true, are your thoughts and your actions. That's it.
Everything else and what other people do and what they think of you and what goes on in their lives and how well other people do their jobs or do the things you want…whatever.
Everything else you have no control over and you can actually decide that everything on that side of the line is fine.
I find myself doing this a lot that when something's really bothering and frustrating me.
I just think I about which side of the line is it on.
Is it my thoughts and actions or is it something out there?
But it has to be a real thought.
What if it was fine?
And has to drip in and really kind of drip into the soul and make sense.
You have to feel it.
It's no good just saying, “it was fine, it's fine.”
That doesn't have any effect.
It has to be a real thing and it's a very helpful thought.