The Secret to Happiness is Compassion

Be Compassionate, Be Happy

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

In this remark from the Dalai Lama lies an important message. It tells you that the secret to becoming happy doesn’t just lie within yourself, but in your connections and interactions with others.

That the key to happiness can be found in compassion.

According to the Dalai Lama, the road to happiness is the development of inner peace and compassion, through reflection and the training of one’s own mind. He does not presume ethics based on an external, moral set of rules but on human, inner insight, arising from critical and loving self-examination.

Our innate ability for empathy forms the basis for this. The Dalai Lama sees a twofold approach to transform empathy into love and compassion: the building blocks of authentic, sustainable happiness, both individually and socially.

With this twofold approach, the Dalai Lama first means an ethics of control, that which we should not do. Then he emphasizes the counter-force, that which we have to do. We must first protect ourselves against factors that block compassion, and secondly, we need to develop factors that generate compassion.

Compassion is a verb. — Thich Nhat Hang

Now how can we generate (more) compassion in ourselves, while being aware of its pitfalls? Let’s start with the latter.

Money doesn’t buy you compassion

Even worse. As riches grow, our feelings of compassion and empathy for others seem to decline. ‘A higher social class also negatively influences a person’s ability to pay attention in interactions with other persons’, Scientific American reported in an article titled How Wealth Reduces Compassion.

Berkeley psychologists Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner ran several studies in which they looked at whether social class (as measured by wealth, occupational prestige, and education) influences how much we care about the feelings of others.

According to their research and other research performed by Michael Kraus, Stéphane Côté and Dacher Keltner, individuals of a lower social class are better at recognizing the emotions of others and more emphatically accurate in judging the emotions of other people, compared to upper-class individuals.

Additional research done by Michael Kraus and Dacher Keltner, Social Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy, showed that individuals with a higher socio-economic status are less likely to pay attention to people they are interacting with; displaying more disengagement (e.g., doodling, checking on their smartphones) than engagement cues (e.g., head nods, laughs).

Why would that be? Why would growing wealth decrease our feelings of compassion for others? You would think that the opposite would more likely be the case. That it is hard to be compassionate if you are not well-off.

Piff and his colleagues suspect that wealth can lead to a feeling of independence from others. Having to rely less on others, we can become more self-focused, caring less about the feelings of others.

From which you could conclude that the degree of (inter)connectedness — whether there is a common connection with the other person — might be of influence here.

Piff and his colleagues also found that wealthier people are more likely to agree with statements that greed is justified, beneficial, and morally defensible. An attitude that is not likely to lead to a feeling of compassion.

Does being wealthy or having money mean you cannot be compassionate or happy? Of course not. But it does mean that you run the risk of becoming less compassionate and emphatic and therefore less happy if you don’t cultivate your ability to be compassionate and emphatic.

By practicing compassion, you’ll ensure your road to happiness

Compassion is defined as a feeling of deep sympathy for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. Compassion is about letting the other person know: I understand you and I empathize.

It is not enough to be compassionate. You must act. — Dalai Lama

Now, how can you cultivate being compassionate?

Compassion is the wish to see others free from suffering. — Dalai Lama

Here is your way to be a truly compassionate person:

Be giving based on your (com)passion

Compassion is passion with a heart. — Anonymous

While looking at research data and the wisdom found in sayings of people like the Dalai Lama, the secret to lasting happiness doesn’t seem to lie in any goods, relationships or achievements, but rather in what we can give: not just material gifts, but gifts of time, gifts of love, random acts of kindness, gifts of ourselves.

Giving time is often more satisfying for the giver and more valuable to the receiver than giving money. We may not have money to give, but we do have time to help others.

A beneficial aspect of this is that compassion and giving money or time to service don’t just make us happy but they also have a lot of other advantages and may even contribute to a longer life.

According to a post in Harvard Health Publishing, volunteering may be good for body and mind. Also other studies of volunteering show surprising benefits, like feelings of being more effective and an increased productivity during the day, better skills, a better psychological and mental health and increased longevity.

A brain imaging study performed by neuroscientist Jordan Grafman (a.o.) from the National Institute of Health investigated the neural mechanisms of charitable donations using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Results showed that ‘the mesolimbic reward system is engaged by donations in the same way as when monetary rewards are obtained.[….] Remarkably, more anterior sectors of the prefrontal cortex are distinctively recruited when altruistic choices prevail over selfish material interests.’

Essentially meaning that giving money to others (charity) is equally rewarding in terms of feelings of pleasure and well-being than receiving money ourselves.

Another experiment published in Science by Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton also had similar findings: spending money on others promotes happiness. When people were given a sum of money, they gained more well-being if they spent it on other people, or gave it away, rather than spending it on themselves.

If anything, it appears that there is a relationship between non-materialism and well-being. While possessing wealth and material goods doesn’t lead to happiness, giving them away actually does. Altruism is hardwired in the brain — and it’s pleasurable. Helping others and being giving may just be the secret to a richer life that is not only happier but also healthier, more productive, and meaningful.

In fact, this is one way in which money actually can bring happiness: by giving it to others.

You have to be aware that giving doesn’t always make you feel great. It can also make you feel depleted and taken advantage of. It is how you give, which makes the difference between feeling hurt or feeling great.

Our (com)passion should be the foundation for our giving. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put into giving.

Compassion is about giving all the love that you’ve got. — Cheryl Strayed

‘Selfless giving, in the absence of self-preservation instincts, easily becomes overwhelming,’ says Adam Grant, author of Give and Take, Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. Normally one would say that the alternative to being selfish — a trait that takers usually have — is being selfless. But Grant came up with another term, called ‘otherish’.

This group of givers are concerned about benefiting others, but they also keep their own interests in the rear-view mirror. They will look for ways to help others that are either low cost or high benefit to themselves. Ways that are ‘win-win’ for parties involved as opposed to ‘win-lose’.

‘Here’s the irony’, Grant says. ‘The selfless givers might be more altruistic, in principle, because they are constantly elevating other people’s interests ahead of their own. But my data, and research by lots of others, show that they’re actually less generous because they run out of energy, they run out of time and they lose their resources, because they basically don’t take enough care of themselves. The ‘otherish’ givers are able to sustain their giving by looking for ways that giving can hurt them less or benefit them more.’

The key lies in finding an approach that suits you. In finding the best charity for your values, that corresponds most with your (com)passion. It is logical and normal that you care more about a certain cause than about other causes.

It is not simply choosing the right thing, but also a matter of choosing what is right for you. When you do so, the more likely it is that your giving will lead to more purpose, meaning and happiness in your life.

Use your voice for kindness, your ears for compassion, your hands for charity, your mind for truth, and your heart for love. — Anonymous

Be helpful

The sages already know it for ages: Helping others leads to more happiness.

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody. — Chinese saying

Be concerned

The sage has no concern for himself but makes the concerns of others his own. — Tao Te Ching chapter 49

When you are truly concerned, you broaden your perspective beyond yourselves. You focus your attention on helping others. Which will increase your happiness. Let me explain.

Remember a moment where a family member or close friend called you because she or he needed a listening ear or needed help with an urgent problem. All of a sudden your attention will go to helping your relative or friend. You begin to feel energized and before you know it, you’ll gladly start helping.

Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion. — Jack Kornfield

This can even help you in times that you are feeling blue. Research shows that depression and anxiety are highly self-focused states, where a person is preoccupied by ‘me, myself, and I’. During these tense and unhappy states, we are usually focused on the things that are going wrong in our lives. When you do something for someone else, however, your state will shift from being self-focused to focusing on others.

In compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there. — Karen Armstrong

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate. — Robert Frost

Practice ‘Random Acts of Kindness’

• Choose a day when you are not already very busy.
• Do 5 friendly deeds on that one day: 5 different things for 5 different people. They may be small deeds, or larger deeds.
• Describe your good deeds and what the effect was, for the other person and for yourself.

Be kind and loving

Compassion is the greatest form of love humans have to offer. — Rachael Joy Scott

Above all, most of us want to be loved. We seek love in our romantic relationships in the form of intimacy and social support, in our families in the form of respect and kindness, and at work in the form of recognition.

When we take actions that are caring and loving, we feel more love in return. Compassionate people act on their kindness, whether it’s through volunteering or just being a shoulder to lean on — and overall they’re much happier for it.

A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal. — Steve Maraboli

All positive effects summarized briefly and concisely: acting on compassion and kind and loving friendliness makes you socially strong. This also reduces stress and anxiety and is therefore good for your health.

Finally, it will help you to see yourself as capable and useful which will increase your happiness.

When these conditions are met, one reinforces the other. By your kindness, you become happier and with that more friendly and so on. And the fun is, it is contagious too!

It also makes you more attractive. A study examining the trait most highly valued in potential romantic partners suggests that both women and men rate kindness as one of their most desired traits.

Be kind to yourself

Compassion for others begins with kindness to ourselves. — Pema Chodron

It is hard to feel for other people if we don’t feel for ourselves.

It is a lack of love for ourselves that inhibits our compassion toward others. If we make friends with ourselves, then there is no obstacle to opening our hearts and minds to others. — Anonymous

Self-compassion is the key to becoming a more compassionate person overall.

That is what compassion does. It challenges our assumptions, our sense of self-limitation, worthlessness, of not having a place in the world. As we develop compassion, our hearts open. — Sharon Salzberg

Be connected

See others as yourself. See families as your family. See towns as your town. See countries as your country. See worlds as your world. — Tao Te Ching, Chapter 54

Compassion increases with connection.

Compassion is to look beyond your own pain, to see the pain of others. — Yasmin Mogahed

Research found that compassion actually increases when there’s a common connection with the other person. Study researcher and Northeastern University psychology professor David DeSteno, Ph.D., wrote in The New York Times: ‘What these results suggest is that the compassion we feel for others is not solely a function of what befalls them: if our minds draw an association between a victim and ourselves — even a relatively trivial one — the compassion we feel for his or her suffering is amplified greatly.’

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. — Thomas Merton

Be mindful

Compassionate people have the awareness that when conversing with someone, they are also really focusing on what matters at that moment: the other. They are therefore not busy with their smartphone or their own reflections, but they’re present and focused on the other by really listening and offering their empathetic response to the story right in front of them.

Nowadays there are numerous studies pointing to the happiness effects of being mindful on the brain. This sort of started years ago, when Harvard psychologists Dan Gilbert and Matthew Killingsworth created a special app called trackyourhappiness.org to gather research. This app pinged you to see if you were paying attention to what you were intending to pay attention to and how you were feeling. Thousands of people went through.

The results: we spend at least half our time (46.9%) thinking about something other than our immediate surroundings. And most of this daydreaming doesn’t make us happy: the more the mind wandered, the unhappier we are.

So I would say: lovingly keep on focusing on the here and now and the people that surround you. It makes you happier!

Be grateful

Gratitude can turn anger into calm, despair into joy, doubt into hope, resentment into compassion, frustration into acceptance, shame into empowerment. Your life can change for the better when you feel gratitude. — Cathy Taughinbaugh

So count the positives. Do things that light you and others up and express gratitude when you receive compassionate acts in your life.

Although compassion is mainly about giving, compassionate people also receive sometimes. And of course that is also possible. But it is striking that when they take (someone does something for them or they get something), they express their gratitude. They actively express how happy they are with the situation, because they know that this increases the happiness of the other person.

I’m so grateful for my heart that graces me with gifts of compassion, faith and love — Mary Cook

On your compassion!