You know that saying “you don’t know what you have till it’s gone”. It’s a very popular sentiment, and you don’t need anybody to explain the truth behind that statement. It just seems very human to recognize what things mean to you and how much you rely on some people or things when they’re gone. What’s a good way, then, to better realize the value of certain things or pay attention to the inherent beauty of meaningful relationships that we have while we have them?
One answer states that a route to happiness and appreciation and gratitude is something called “mental subtraction”. This is to think about the absence of a positive event from one’s life.
Researchers Koo et al in 2008 conducted an experiment with 65 college students, asking them to describe an event for which they felt grateful. They then split these students into two experimental groups – one group was asked to “please describe the ways in which this thing or event has been part of your life” and the other group was asked to “please describe what it would be like if this thing or event were not a part of your life.”
The researchers then rated affective states on 7 point scales after they were done with the practice. They found a significant difference in affective scores among the two experimental groups – those students who were asked to describe what it would be like if the thing or event that they had selected were not part of their life had significantly more positive affect than the other group.
To put simply, people who mentally subtracted from their life – imaging a scenario where their life was worse – were happier as a result of it. They felt happier and more grateful by comparing themselves to a potential version of themselves who was worse off.
This has made it’s way to mainstream self-help culture and is known as the “George Bailey” effect. You can search up this term on Google and you’ll find several links that describe the success of this technique for lots of people. Essentially, by using a storytelling intervention every once a while, say once a week, you can be far happier.
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology published research that stated that participants who were asked to imagine what life would look like without their partner were significantly happier than participants who were asked to write the story about how they met their partner.
Maybe you can imagine your daily life without running water, or if you had to take a freezing cold shower every morning. Or you could imagine how your life would look like if your favorite sport didn’t exist, or if you lived as a caveman. You can imagine if you never met your best friend, or if you never worked hard towards your goals in school.
You have to be careful, and you should avoid overthinking and ruminating. But by creating a routine that you can follow – maybe once a week – in which you write a story for yourself that answers a certain “what if” question, you can better appreciate your own life and the luxuries that you might otherwise not feel grateful for.
But don’t take my word for it! I hope you try it at least once or twice and figure out if mental subtraction is something that makes you happier and more grateful! Best of luck on your happiness journey, and as always, I deeply appreciate your reading through the entire thing.
Naman
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