Have a Bias Toward Fun with Dr. Mike Rucker

Can we all agree that we want a little more fun in our life? Fun usually leads to happiness, which is something we all could use a little more of. The reality is, happiness is a little more ominous than we think. This can best be explained by Dr. Mike Rucker, who is an expert on the psychology of happiness and fun.

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Dr. Rucker stated, "For many of us, a fulfilling life includes a drive towards happiness, making attaining happiness worthy of pursuit. However, there is an inherent risk when we chase happiness in this way. When we make happiness our goal, often unconscious dissidence is the result. This occurs because when we try to resolve ourselves to being 'happy', we naturally become aware of the distance in our current reality and the reality we seek. You might have heard the coaching maxim, 'Its better to measure the gain, than measure the gap'. However, when we blindly pursue happiness, that's exactly what we fall victim to. Measuring the gap. I submit to you there is a better way, and that way is creating a bias towards fun. This approach steers our focus away from the happiness gap, which science suggests paradoxically makes us less happy. Instead, it creates us more opportunities to create joyful moments. When we take action-oriented approach to creating more joy in our life, we move our focus away from what is missing, and towards the awareness that we posses the agency to create our own joy".

It’s a dangerous game when we are explicitly pursuing happiness. Dr. Mike suggests instead that we pursue happy moments by way of having fun, because that is more objective than playing the comparison game, or falling into the happiness gap. Measure your happiness the right way!