Happiness is a funny thing – intangible and difficult to maintain. In reality, research suggests that embracing the fact that we won’t be happy at all times is a big component in actually being happy.
It turns out that you’d be happier winning a bronze medal at the Olympics than a silver medal.
So being happy can sometimes be rather counterintuitive. A study on the medal-winning athletes of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games actually found that bronze medallists were happier than silver medallists with their results.
It all comes down to one particular oddity of the human mind. Scientists call it Counterfactual Thinking – it’s our need to constantly compare.
It goes a little something like this:
I won!
Gold – hurrah, huzzah, wahey!
Silver – just missed out on Gold … oh well.
Bronze – I got a medal! I was close to getting nothing, so happy days!
So if you’re feeling a little disappointed at a pretty great result like a silver medal – maybe compare it in the opposite direction … like that there is only one person out of nearly seven billion people who can beat you. Pretty great right?
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