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The Nuance
Hard Work Is the Key to True Happiness (aka, Your Parents Were Right)
Scientists untangle the relationship between effort and emotional payoff
In his 2004 book Authentic Happiness, the University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman tells the story of a lizard that won’t eat.
The lizard belonged to one of Seligman’s colleagues. No matter what it was offered — fruit, ground pork, dead flies — the lizard refused to eat. But then one day its owner tossed a newspaper down on top of a ham sandwich. The lizard pounced on the newspaper, shredded it to pieces, and devoured the sandwich beneath it.
“Lizards have evolved to stalk and pounce and shred before they eat,” Seligman writes in his book. “So essential was the exercise… to the life of the lizard that its appetite could not be awakened until [this behavior] was engaged.”
Seligman is one of the founders of the “positive psychology” movement, which aims to understand those behaviors or patterns of thinking that promote happiness or other positive mental states. The lizard anecdote, he writes, raises the question of whether there are true shortcuts to pleasure or gratification. For the lizard, the answer was no. It needed to engage in certain behaviors before it could enjoy…
