(This is the fourth post in a series about “anchoring” and its effect on our happiness.)
Are you hindered in happiness? Are you lacking in love? Comedian Bo Burnham has some excellent advice at the end of this post.
But first, let’s set the table for Bo’s point.
Starting with the fact that we’re not alone in our struggle for happiness and love. Researchers say the average person’s positivity ratios are just above depression and a third of the healthy standard of 6-to-1. That means we need to triple our positivity.
The love problem often springs out of the happiness problem. Cynicism, despair, frustration and anger destroy relationships instead of building them. No one loves hanging out with cynical downers. On the other hand, optimism, hope, encouragement and humor attract relationships. We love being around people who are up-beat and life-giving.
So how do we boost our optimism in a world that’s brimming with disappointments? Why does it feel like something is always dragging us down?
The drag could be an “anchor,” which I’ve been describing as an unconscious reference point we use to make our comparisons. Here are examples:
- Compared to that mansion, my house is a dump. The reference point (anchor) is the mansion, and the comparison creates negative feelings.
- Compared to that shack, my house is the Taj Mahal. The reference point (anchor) is the shack, and the comparison creates positive feelings.
It’s the same house in both situations, but our view of it gets changed by our starting point in the comparison. Our sense of good and bad, and the positive and negative emotions that follow, come not from comparison itself, but the reference point of our comparison. The anchor changes everything.
Manage Anchors, Manage Moods
That means we can manage our mood by managing our anchors. If we need more happiness, perhaps we need to create better anchors instead of waiting for better circumstances.
Here’s proof. Last post I described a drive through town that involved twenty traffic lights. I showed how the way we experience these lights is completely different when our anchors are different.
- The first anchor was the expectation, every light should be green. Given this anchor and the comparison we made to it, we created ten neutral experiences when we drove through the green lights and ten negative experiences when we stopped at the red lights.
- The second anchor was the expectation, every light should be red. With this anchor and comparison, we experienced ten positives as we drove through greens and ten neutrals when we stopped at reds.
The two trips were the exact same experiences of green and red lights, but the anchor of expectation created ten happy experiences for one and ten frustrated experiences for the other.
Which makes me wonder how much of our misery is from the actual bad experiences of life, and how much is from the anchors we choose when having the experiences.
Happiness, Love, and Lowering Our Expectations.
Not only can the right use of anchors make us instantly happier, it might just lead us to finding love. Comedian Bo Burnham wrote a song about love that has everything to do with anchors and comparison.
Enjoy.