Translation

Don’t Be Fooled by Your Brain As It Is

Everyone thinks they want to be happy, but there’s nothing more difficult. That’s because the brain itself is an organ optimized for predicting and detecting danger. It was not made to fully enjoy happiness from the beginning. Therefore, we must tenaciously and intentionally feel happiness. This is the beginning and the end of today’s discussion.

Across all cultures and histories, there are six basic emotions that humans universally feel: happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust, and fear. Among them, happiness is the only positive emotion. Negative emotions not only outnumber positive ones, but their intensity is also far greater. That’s why it’s hard for us to feel happiness, yet we can easily feel sadness or self-loathing over minor things. For the brain, which is always mindful of threats and negative events for survival, enjoyable and positive things are not a priority. Thirty years ago, John Cacioppo, a psychologist and the founder of social neuroscience, revealed through brainwave research the brain’s pattern of giving disproportionate weight to negative information. Since then, numerous studies have repeatedly confirmed this.

Survival shapes negative emotional patterns
Everyone struggles with their own sorrows
Cultivate habits of savoring the moment and seeking joy

So don’t be fooled by your brain as it is now. That friend has spent seven million years being tense, cautious, and fully committed to survival. Even if things feel desolate right now, you can pave a new path for yourself with a more evolved and refined method. Here are two things to try today: savoring and finding enjoyment.

Savor the moment. At first, this will feel challenging. Make it a habit. Simply experiencing something and understanding or feeling grateful for its meaning are processed by different parts of the brain. When you continuously try to perform these separate tasks together, new connections form in the brain. Neurons that used to function independently begin, without realizing it, to team up and work together. They form a "team of experiencing, savoring, and appreciating."

If the warmth of a fire was comforting, savor it. If the warmth of your meal felt pleasant, or the weather was clear, savor it without missing it. If you spent a peaceful day thanks to someone, savor it and feel grateful. Spend just a few minutes each day meditating on your daily life, expressing gratitude, and practicing mindfulness to build inner strength.

You might dismiss savoring as just mental consolation, but the position of neurotransmitters in your brain is clear. As demonstrated in a study published in Nature last month, when we experience something pleasant, dopamine—a neurotransmitter that encourages us to anticipate and explore the future—is released as if in a competition. If you imagine the concentration of such neurotransmitters gradually increasing each time you feel grateful or happy, there’s no reason not to savor those moments.

Number 2: find the fun and enjoyment in your life, no matter what. Albert Ellis (1913–2007), a clinical psychologist known as the father of cognitive-behavioral therapy, identified one of humanity’s most irrational beliefs: the idea that happiness will come to you without effort. It’s as absurd as expecting a YouTube channel to gain subscribers without uploading content, a foreign language skill to improve without studying, or customers to flock to a restaurant without serving any food.

Your happiness must be something you consciously decide to discover. Find it in your favorite music, in someone’s voice, in a hobby you spend time on, in physical activity, or in the rounded contours of a child’s cheek. Discover yourself in these moments, saying, "Ah, I really liked this." All these little things are the small and lovely mechanisms that help us overcome the emptiness and despair of life.

If you ask whether we really need to live this way, the answer is yes. That is what it means to be human. We are finite beings who fear disease, disaster, poverty, and isolation, and if we’re unlucky, we might suddenly find ourselves falling under the blade of misfortune. Life is so difficult that, unless we actively search for small moments of fun, we will eventually view our lives through the irrational and distorted lens of depression and anxiety, making them unbearable. Left alone, your brain will carry you along the current of negative emotions and thoughts, straight into the hell of helplessness. So don’t let your brain take you wherever it pleases.

On nights when I can’t fall asleep, I quietly think about how countless others are also unable to sleep, struggling with their own depression and anxiety. Sometimes, I feel connected to nameless people through this shared sorrow, thinking, "Everyone is struggling because they’re human." Then, I close the door on rumination, savor the texture of the blanket touching my arm, and rediscover unexpected joy in the familiar sound of my family’s breathing. In this way, I live again—not in the past, not in the future, but in this present moment.

Heo Ji-won, Professor of Psychology, Korea University

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