Definitions are critical for several reasons. Clear definitions are essential for effective communication and purposeful discourse, ensuring that the parties communicating are relating to the same thing. Just as important, solid definitions are required to guide our pursuits. Moving toward a destination efficiently requires clarity about that destination. A vague perception of what is being pursued undermines the efficiency of the pursuit; an inaccurate definition can derail it altogether.
Here’s a problem I’ve been increasingly impressed with over my decades of practicing psychiatry: The concepts most critical to mental health and the pursuit of happiness are rarely defined with any precision. Terms like happiness, freedom, hope, meaning, forgiveness, and acceptance are universally recognized as important, yet few people can actually define them (be they my patients, colleagues, or authors of relevant literature).
We operate as if we know what these ‘things’ are when, in fact, all we know is what they feel like. Our feelings are remarkably useful (more on this below), but when it comes to these important concepts, the sense of knowing they impart is an illusion. Check for yourself: You likely have a sense of what each of the terms I just listed means. Now, try to define them. See?
Knowing what something feels like is very different from knowing what it is. We’re hardwired to use feelings as a source of knowledge, an evolutionary strategy that serves survival well but is suboptimal for the pursuit of happiness. The universality of this problem — i.e., the fact that hardly anyone has definitions for these crucial terms — makes it easy to overlook. But ignorance, individual or shared, is never benign.
Our mental state is typically dominated by feelings. As research consistently shows, affective input arrives in consciousness before the corresponding cognitive input, and can hijack attention. Definitions are purely cognitive; having them clear and present can counterbalance this emotional dominance.
Mental balance is crucial for optimal functioning. Establishing it requires appropriate allocation of attention to both affective and cognitive inputs. Solid definitions compensate for the built-in cognitive lag, adding to the cognitive side of the balance.
The definitions in the following glossary have been personally and professionally useful to me; I hope you will find them useful as well. They’re framed specifically for the context of this work — their primary value lies in their applicability to the pursuit of happiness.
(Many thanks to Dr. GF for an invaluable editorial input!)
We (Jing and I) came to your website for the first time today (July 25, 2017）。It looks good so far， and I am very grateful for it。
Your notation that feelings form and arise in the consciousness faster than thoughts is so very interesting , as is the point/reminder that our brains are « survival” biased. It is so very important to know that feelings are not our best guide in the pursuit of happiness . I believe that I will be less likely to immediately « react » when a difficult feeling/ emotion arises.
Thank you for this most interesting resource !