Happiness via Optimal Challenge

Optimal Challenge is an in innovative method to obtain happiness coined by happiness researcher and author Dr. Herbert Laszlo.
Definitions
Happiness is scientifically defined since the times of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC). He defines Eudaimonia (Greek for happiness) as “what you pursue for its own sake and not as a means to something other”. (Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics)
The younger definition of happiness as “pleasant feeling” of even newer “the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant feelings of a given human being” is not as exact as the Greek definition used in the theory of Optimal Challenge. Positive psychology has to confess, that it is impossible and maybe boring to experience only pleasant feelings. Pleasant feelings without unpleasant feelings won’t constitute happiness.
Theory
The theory of optimal challenge is based on the following axioms:
1. Happiness is a state of mind, characterized by the wish for continuation, when it is experienced, and the wish for repetition, when it is remembered.
This definition is different from the definition used by positive psychology, where Happiness is defined as feeling. The new definition considers the observation that pleasant feelings alone don’t make people happy.
2. Happiness is caused by challenges that match the abilities of an individual person in an optimal way. This is called optimal challenge.
This axiom considers the observation, that sex and celibacy can make happy. The same concerns eating and fasting. Activities or conditions that exclude or contradict each other logically and’t be the causes of identical states of mind. This cause is the optimal challenge.
Research
The theory of optimal challenge is the fruit of 50 years of personal research by Herbert Laszlo based on personal observations and an analysis of literature, e.g. from Wilhelm Wundt, Robert Yerkes and John D. Dodson, Hans Selye, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Wilhelm Wundt published already in 1887 the results of an experiment that connects a form of challenge, in this case a mix of food, to a behavior of appetence which suggests happiness. The result is depicted in the following “Wundt Curve”:
The continuous curve shows the amount of salt added in different states of the experiment to the food of the objects of the test. The dotted line shows the visible signs of happiness with the food or rejection of food depending on the amount of salt.
Figure a marks the point where the objects of the test started to recognize the salt. From this point the dotted curve starts to rise into the realm of happiness above the line x - x’.
Figure c marks the maximum of the dotted curve and the begin of the decline.
Figure e marks the drop of the dotted line from the realm of happiness into the realm of aversion.
This graph shows very well the small realm of optimal challenge as base of happiness. So don’t wonder why it is so difficult to stay happy. It is like walking on a tightrope.
Robert Yerkes and John D. Dodson 1908 found the “Yerkes Dodson Law” connecting arousal to performance in a way, that medium arousal brings a maximum of performance.
The graph of the Yerkes Dodson Law is simple, but somehow misleading:

Laszlo criticizes two characteristics of this graph:
1. It neglects the possible consequences of performance to happiness and
2. it suggests that the maximum is nearly in the middle between low and high arousal, while according to the findings of optimal challenge the maximal happiness (and probably also the maximal performance) lies in the right hand side of the graph, near maximum arousal, naturally not exceeding the point of optimum.
Hans Hugo Bruno Selye (Hungarian: Selye János) coined the term “stress” for challenges to an organism. In the preface to the German translation of his work on stress he complains misunderstandings in the popular opinion regarding his findings on stress. There he stresses the finding, that a certain amount of stress for which he coined the term “eustress” is not only necessary for living, but also a pleasant experience.
Selye did not go further into the direction of optimal challenge, but he can anyway be named as one of the predecessors of this theory.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is another Hungarian working on ideas that could be regarded as forerunners of optimal challenge. He formulated the “Flow Channel” between stress and boredom, publishing the following graph:
He describes this graph analogue to entering a tennis club.
A is the area, where you meet a skilled player. You get scared.
B is the area, where you resort to other newcomers playing as badly as you do.
C is the point you reach after some training. Now it starts to be boring to play with newcomers.
D is the last point: You return to the skilled player.
For B and D, where your challenge matches your abilities, Csikszentmihalyi coined the name “Flow Channel”.
Herbert Laszlo finally formulated the axioms and the laws of optimal challenge. He draws a more complicated graph of the connections between challenge and happiness:
In this graph too the maximum seems to be in the middle. This is only a tribute to the sense of symmetry. In fact the maximum of happiness should be much more to the right near the stress the individual can stand without dying.
The realm between the two thin vertical lines is that of relative happiness. The vertical line in the center indicates the very narrow area where you experience a maximum of happiness.
Practical consequences
Optimal Challenge is not only a theory, but also a concept for practical pursuit of happiness as promised in the constitution. But there are two practical problems:
1. As the graph of Wundt shows, the challenge causing happiness has a very limited range. There is much more challenge that does not arouse our activities or brings us into unpleasant stress which Selye named “distress”. So we need the help of other people to be and to stay happy.
2. Our abilities alter steadily. We get tired, rest, feel the effects of training and increased knowledge. So making somebody happy is not a static procedure: you give somebody happiness, and that’s it. Making people happy is a dynamic process involving repeated surprise, fatigue and rest.
Making us happy is an art in the truest sense of the word. So we need - and pay - artists for making us happy with their works of art. But to be held in the state of optimal challenge we must trust the people who want to make us happy.
Business and Happiness
Making people happy is not only a business; it is in fact THE business. The German marketing expert Anne Schueller states that you can’t sell anything that would not make customers happy in one or the other way.
There are books on Business and Happiness based on the theory of optimal challenge. Unfortunately up to now they are available only in German waiting for translation into English.
Literature:
Wundt, Wilhelm Maximilian: Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie, Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig 1887
Schüller, Anne M.: Erfolgreich verhan¬deln - erfolgreich verkaufen. Wie Sie Men¬schen und Märkte gewinnen. Verlag Business Village, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-938358-10-6.
Laszlo, Herbert: Glück und Wirtschaft (Happiness Economics). Was Wirtschaftstreibende und Führungskräfte über die Glücksforschung wissen msüsen. Infothek. Wien 2008, ISBN 9-783902-346384.
Aristotle: Nicomachian Ethics, different translations available.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow.
Sonja Lyubomirsky: The How of Happiness.

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