Julia: During a recent trip to the library, I decided to stray from my normal novel-seeking routine and hunt down something new. I found the psychology section and began to look at some of the titles. Most of the “psychology books” turned out to be self-help, well-being books. I found, I kid you not, books on how to become happy in eight days, seven steps and three minutes as well as various other measures of time. That got me thinking: Can following the rules someone else lays down for you really produce happiness? And if it works, is it because of the procedures you followed or because someone with a Ph.D. said they would work? What portion of this advice is based on proven endorphin-releasing techniques: eating dark chocolate, exercising, laughing, etc.? And how much takes a little trickery on the part of the person writing the book and the person reading it. Sure, you can down all the Hershey’s bars, exercise tapes and comedy tracks you want, but I don’t think total happiness can be produced with just visible action-reaction techniques.

If you think about it, doctors and mental health providers are trusted figures in society, and people are apt to believe, try or take something if they say it’s good. Those who write these books appear to represent happy, successful people in the world. Otherwise we wouldn’t be reading their advice. If a death row criminal wrote a self-help book, I doubt anyone would take it seriously. Certainly, their thoughts may be as worthy as anyone else’s, but people aren’t going to put much faith in their judgment on this subject. People want to imitate someone who is obviously happy and successful. So there you go, trick No. 1: People believe that by taking the advice of a well-rounded, happy person, they themselves will become well-rounded and happy. Monkey see, monkey do.

People also want happiness fast. The faster the results, the more likely something is working, and patience becomes irrelevant. In self-help books, happiness is generally spelled out in a certain number of steps, minutes or “easy” techniques, all of which guarantee euphoria in the near future. It’s sort of like when a person thinks that since taking one pill for an illness will make them feel somewhat better, then the more pills the better. Such is the case for self-help. If drinking cranberry juice and walking your dog once a day produces happiness in a week, why not do both three times a day? Besides causing indigestion, this makes people think they are getting results faster. Rather than having a pleasant routine take effect on them over a longer period of time, people rush to get results bypassing any benefits that taking their time may have on their happiness. Trick No. 2: Self-help books cater to immediate results by making their techniques as short and sweet as possible. They may have less effect in the long run.

There are other nuances that make up the self-help realm, but few of these books rely on proven science alone. A lot of the publication tricks these books use, such as slapping a doctor’s name and face on the cover or making happiness attainable in less than an hour, are ultimately marketing ploys to sell more books. The truth is, happiness is subjective, and self-help books are kind of ironic in that they are someone’s self-produced happiness techniques written by another person. Happiness can take any amount of time and numerous behaviors to come upon it.

Wes: In my line of work this issue pops up about twice day in one form or another – so this someone with a Ph.D. has had to come up with a coherent philosophy about happiness. While Julia is right – happiness is subjective – the folks in my world do not usually greet that answer with much enthusiasm. They are searching for answers and tend to get frustrated if the therapist hasn’t thought these key issues through. I’m sure that’s the fuel by which many of these self-help books are written.

So what’s the overriding core principle of happiness – the one that applies across diverse people and cultures and so on? Organization.

I feel a strange sense of yawning. I guess my shot at the self-help book market isn’t three-day or seven-habit enough.

Seriously, if you look across a large sample of people, you’ll find that the happiest folks are the ones who have organized their lives in such a way as to create a meaningful and rewarding existence. It’s about that simple. I don’t mean they know where their car keys are or have a PDA with all their appointments on it – though both of those things make me really happy. I mean they have made decisions, plans, goals, hopes, dreams, and they have a realistic way of approaching the world, so that even the struggle for what they want is meaningful. This organization can involve many things, but it nearly always includes decisions about career and/or school, who we choose to love and how we develop our social network. It often includes how we manage family relationships, especially in adolescence and early adulthood. Of course biology does create some openings or obstacles for feeling good, making choices and following though on our dreams – but in the end free will and what we do with it can account for a big portion of our happiness. More importantly, none of us can control our genetics or the social class we’re born into. All we can control are our decisions and how we organize our life by making them.

Julia also wonders if the consumers of self-help books are “really happy,” perhaps like a sunny feeling emerging from deep within, or just come to think they are. Based on my philosophy, I’d have to vote for “it doesn’t matter.” Rather than will yourself to an shapeless feeling of happiness, its better to learn to think in the organized way I’m suggesting above – the one that will generate joy and satisfaction for any unique person. How that organization looks will vary infinitely, but what it can do is very powerful. A big part of that experience really is changing how you think about things – whether you believe in yourself, take intelligent risks, learn how to succeed, stay curious about limits and how to challenge them, search for meaning, etc. Is that kind of happiness real or the product of a tricky thinking? As long as the product works, I’d say either is A-OK.

Next week: Interested in writing for Double Take? Next week we’ll post the rules and the challenge question.

– Dr. Wes Crenshaw is a board-certified family psychologist and director of the Family Therapy Institute Midwest. Julia Davidson is a Bishop Seabury Academy junior. Opinions and advice given here are not meant as a substitute for psychological evaluation or therapy services. Send your questions about adolescent issues (limited to 200 words) to doubletake@ljworld.com. All correspondence is strictly confidential.