Achieving Happiness by Moving from a Quantitative to a Qualitative Mindset
Western society is obsessed with counting. We count everything. Money. Personal and business achievements. Educational recognitions. Possessions. And what we don’t count in specific amounts we judge based on a scale that is, essentially, counting. How attractive is someone? How prestigious is a job? What is the class level of our friends? These are all ways to count things in order to assign value to them. I contend that this it not the way to live if you want to be happy.
Rather than count things (quantitative thinking), I propose another perspective on living by instead placing more value on the actual experience and how something feels (qualitative thinking). It’s more important that you like your job and feel it has value to society than having a fancy title and getting a huge salary. It’s more important that you enjoy your home and the possessions it contains than how much they’re worth monetarily.
There are some things in life we already tend to judge qualitatively rather than quantitatively. Imagine you’re eating a wonderful meal. When you describe to someone how much you enjoyed it, do you assign some sort of quantified number to it? No, you simply describe it as a wonderful experience. When you have great sex, do you rank and rate it against other sexual experiences? Hopefully not. Hopefully you embraced the sexual encounter completely and enjoyed it for the experience it was.
As you go through your day, try to catch yourself counting. Do you envy people who make a lot more money than you do? Do you look at a fancy car driving by and think that people would judge you differently if you drove such a vehicle? Do you look at your to do list and focus on getting as much done as possible rather than prioritizing and enjoying the important things you get done. I think you’ll be surprised how often we count and rank our life experiences. I’m going to try and stop doing this because I know it will make me happier. Perhaps it will do the same for you?