# Happiness and the Secret to Happiness - What's Happening in Life? with Billur Aktürk - URL: https://alisanburak.com/en/mutluluk-ve-mutlulugun-sirri-billur-akturk-ile-neler-oluyor-hayatta - Language: en - Last updated: 2026-08-15 - Page title: Happiness and the Secret to Happiness - What's Happening in Life? with Billur Aktürk | Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alişan Burak Yaşar > Happiness and the Secret to Happiness People who seek happiness and its secret, and who live more fulfilling lives in line with their values, are more like This page was translated automatically from Turkish. [Read the original](https://alisanburak.com/mutluluk-ve-mutlulugun-sirri-billur-akturk-ile-neler-oluyor-hayatta) [← Back to blog](https://alisanburak.com/en/blog) # Happiness and the Secret to Happiness - What's Happening in Life? with Billur Aktürk April 21, 2021Writings and Talks [Görsel: Happiness and the Secret to Happiness - What's Happening in Life? with Billur Aktürk] **Happiness and the Secret to Happiness** - People who seek happiness and its secret, and who live more fulfilling lives in line with their values, are more likely to succeed. - Happiness is unlike other concepts. When we examine data on health, physics, or other fields, we look at certain objective indicators. But when we look at happiness, we see a subjective experience. It varies from person to person, and we cannot measure it. We describe happiness in terms of average satisfaction levels, the frequency of joyful feelings, and the relative absence of distressing emotions. - But there is a problem here: If we constantly think that happiness is necessary and essential, and that we must always be happy, we arrive at a paradox—because we experience sadness, unhappiness, and other emotions that are part of the natural course of life, this rule has the opposite effect. When we naturally experience unhappiness, believing that happiness is essential can make us even unhappier: “I must be doing something wrong; I am not where I should be.” Like many of our emotions—worry, low mood, anxiety, excitement, romantic love, and affection—happiness is a valuable flow of information from within. This is how we should approach it. ## The Impact of City Life - When considering the impact of city life on happiness, if by city life we mean working 15 hours a day, walking around amid exhaust fumes, and thinking about how to generate more revenue the next day, it leads to stress and an unfulfilling life. However, if we mean a city where transport networks allow people to meet easily, walk in spacious parks, take their pets to the vet, and let happy children play safely in the streets, that kind of city life brings fulfillment. - Socializing, movement, exercise, increasing the number of settings where people can physically come together, expanding cultural and sporting activities, and providing social opportunities that help people develop their creativity in line with their personal abilities… These all depend on both civil society and public authorities creating space for them. ## The Relationship Between Success and Happiness - When we examine the relationship between success and happiness and ask whether successful people are happier, we are not sure. But the reverse may be true. When we consider how people's lives change through psychotherapy and other interventions for psychological distress, people who strive for happiness and live more fulfilling lives in line with their values are happier. We do not know whether success brings happiness, but if we provide people with environments where they can be happier, greater success will follow. - Regarding faith and happiness, some studies suggest that people with religious faith are happier, while others do not. Faith is a value; it represents something we hold dear. The things we value do not promise happiness; they promise meaning. If we do our best, they promise fulfillment. That is what matters in such situations. Just as someone who values exercise may think that exercising more will make them happier, we can say that faith brings fulfillment. So it is helpful to consider what we value and whether our actions are right for those values. - Humans are social beings. Therefore, spending more time with loved ones, being able to laugh, caring for our bodies through exercise, and eating healthily are collective responsibilities. The state should therefore create more opportunities by providing sports facilities, artistic activities that can bring people happiness, and clean environments. This creates spaces where people can realize their potential. All of these are connected with happiness. ## **Beyond the Agenda with Billur Aktürk - Is It Possible to Be Happy All the Time? -19.11.2020** ### **Do we listen to our inner voice?** - Our inner parts, personal story, and past shape us and how we experience the outside world. Our internal processes determine our outward behavior, interpretations, and perceptions. - If our attitudes and behaviors in everyday life are focused on escaping our inner parts, we cannot hear the outside world. How we connect with our inner world matters; we should approach it more courageously and openly. ### **How does the brain experience time?** - Psychology draws on the laws of physics and has developed a theory about the nature of internal forces. - There is no absolute concept of time. According to the theory of relativity, speed and time are relative. We define them in relation to a reference point. - Muzaffer Sherif: A group is shown a fixed point, and earlier participants (confederates) say that it is 4 cm to the right of the center. Those who come afterward then perceive it that way and state that the point is to the right. Direct perception is influenced in this way. Information from the stimuli on the screen reaches us through reflected light and is processed through our eyes and other mechanisms in the brain, producing an outcome that has been altered at the level of awareness and perception. - We already construct our entire perception and existence through the eyes of others (our mother, father, or caregiver). Human beings construct reality relationally through another person's eyes and become human in this way. Before saying that time is passing more quickly, we can consider what time is like and view our perceptions as something normally reconstructed together. - We cannot say that time was slower in our childhood and past but is faster now. We cannot say that our childhood was slower or faster. - How does our brain carry out this process? I receive information from you; my two eyes receive two separate sets of data and try to put them together. By combining this with other information in memory, the brain arrives at an interpretation, and I speak according to that interpretation because it is my perception. - Before asking why our “colliding perceptions” perceive time that way, let us explore how they perceive it. ### **Fast devices and happiness** - People can build a system (a dystopia) out of their own internal needs, desires, and fears. If such a system is built, there are still things we can do within it: One of the most important human characteristics that distinguishes us from other animals is language and the ability to speak. We can represent another person's mind in our own and reflect on ourselves. We can also run very long distances for extended periods. We might think of airplanes, for example. Another characteristic is adaptability. In such a dystopia, humans would also develop defenses that allow them to adapt. ## **Beyond the Agenda with Billur Aktürk – Why Can't We Be Happy? -29.10.2020** **(In the example of the white and red doors, I described the white door as the ideal life; I wrote this to avoid confusion later.)** ### **Why can't we be happy?** - We should not define happiness as pleasure, enjoyment, or good feelings, because these are momentary experiences. People cannot be happy all the time. If we define happiness as constantly sustaining momentary pleasures and enjoyable feelings, happiness becomes difficult to attain. - But if we define it as living a meaningful and fulfilling life, it becomes something different from pleasure. This is where we should look for happiness. - What is our brain programmed for? Unfortunately, our brains are essentially the same as they were ten thousand years ago. Cultural evolution and evolution in the modern world have outpaced biological evolution. Needs were different in the distant past. Back then, the brain focused on survival—it was not seeking happiness, and pleasure was not the point. It attended only to our basic needs for survival. It also attended to one of humanity's most crucial characteristics: living in groups. Humans live in groups. So our brain tells us to stay in the group and avoid being excluded. We can understand our relationship with social media in this way, too. - Our brain works as though it were experiencing what it imagines. If I imagine eating a banana now, I can taste it. For example, there is a great deal of virtual and fabricated visual content; if the group is there and I am here, I think I have been excluded. - The CBT account of depression, Beck: The person thinks, “I am worthless.” The world is bad, and the future will be bad, too. We see the emotional, physiological, and behavioral effects of this. Yet people who are not depressed say, “I am fine, the future will be good, and the world is good.” Which is closer to reality? Rather than being wired for happiness, our brain carries the anxiety and fear for which we were programmed long ago. Depression is becoming increasingly common. ### **Is happiness possible on your own?** - We have better resources than a king of the past. We live in a different age in terms of access, yet we are unhappy. - Anger is the visible tip of the iceberg. Beneath it lie feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and sadness that seem impossible to cope with. However, it is our perception that these feelings are unmanageable. Emotions give us a message. When I am afraid, fear tells me to run; when I am anxious, anxiety tells me there is a threat; when I am sad, sadness tells me something is at odds with my values; anger tells me to use it to survive. Accepting these emotions and being able to cope with unhappiness is, in fact, a path to happiness. - What is our problem today? Values. What am I living for? Why am I living? Am I doing these things of my own free will, or am I avoiding something? We forget in the rush of life. - There is a part of me that looks back on today five years from now, or at the end of my life, and asks what kind of life I have lived. On the other hand, there is a place we reach when we forget that ideal life, where we find no fulfillment. It is a place we go to escape unhappiness and low spirits, but it does not satisfy us. We fall on our way to somewhere meaningless and cannot find the strength to get up—why should I get up? There is no motivation. Yet there is a space that should remind us of our ideals, and we must remind ourselves of it to live a fulfilling life. - People with depression say they do not enjoy any pleasurable activities. When they remember and rediscover that ideal life, they find motivation. - We need to consider the basis on which we evaluate ourselves—is it the process or the goal? The point is not to reach my goal as quickly as possible, but to understand the process. We need to assess ourselves in terms of that process. If my ultimate goal is peace, what small, achievable goal can I set for myself today? - I should find a positive reinforcer for myself: Today, I took a step toward changing the world. - If we assess ourselves based on the actions we take today for the things we value, focusing on the variables we can change, this leads to a fulfilling life. - What are values? Success, justice, love, kindness, family, virtue, culture, a political party, and so on. All of these form the path to an ideal life. ### **When and how do we lose what makes us human?** - How do we acquire it? Psychoanalysis defines humans as beings marked by a lack. In the womb, we are in an omnipotent, happy, warm place. Everything is wonderful. Then birth happens, and we “leave paradise.” We are now dependent because we need our parents to survive. Having lost all that power, the child looks toward that warm place. The mother, whom the baby constantly watches, may not be looking at the baby. The baby searches elsewhere for what is missing: “Let me be like what she is looking at”—identification. - We constantly try to fill that lack. We live as though absolute pleasure exists, but it does not. What we do amid this rush reveals our stance. How we wage the struggle matters. What is our relationship with our lack? It does us no good to keep insisting that we are complete. We are all wounded and incomplete. ### **The impact of city life on happiness** - If the crisis became more severe, everyone would look for something sweet. Although we may feel angry about metropolitan life, it is also wonderful. Safety, transport, communication—everything is easily accessible. In America, for example, everyone has a gun. Detached houses are far apart. - There is a threat—the brain's alarm system activates. Fight or flight. Surrender is also possible. The difficult part is this: What do we do if the threat is inside us? What happens, for example, if our thoughts are dangerous? People with panic disorder cannot escape: “I am going crazy, I am dying, I am having a heart attack.” There are situations they cannot control. What they are trying to escape is a thought. The thought “What if I have another attack?” causes harm. - Exercise: Imagine an absurd, pink, enormous elephant. Close your eyes for 30 seconds and do not think about the pink elephant. If the thought comes to mind, make a mark on a piece of paper. - Even if we escape what is outside, we cannot escape the enemy within. ### **The relationship between happiness and hope:** - Let us approach this through values. Our core values might include belonging/patriotism, family, career, and hobbies (travel, etc.). Each value tells us something different. One action can serve three values at once—for example, working abroad for my career and my family. An action may also conflict with certain values. We need to keep checking in with our ideal life. Sometimes our lives may not align with our foremost value; if we say that family, for example, is our only value, we will be devastated and lose hope. - Checking every day to see whether a new treatment has been found for an illness is an expression of hope. Although we may do things that benefit our psychological and physical health, we should not act as though health were our only value. Even when behavior aligned with one value conflicts with others, we need to keep hope alive. We must be willing to face the pain arising from the value that is in conflict. ### **The relationship between happiness and community (a sense of belonging)** - We must not overlook the fact that every person has both good and evil within them. It is all in our hands, and it is uncertain which direction we will take on any given day. We judge other people by their intentions, but ourselves by our behavior and its consequences. - What we do in relation to national values is very important: What did I do for this purpose today? ### **Success and happiness** - Success is something highly valued. For some people, success is a very important value, and if luck is on their side, they can realize their potential and become successful. The unhappiness I experience each time I lose matters greatly, as it helps us plan the steps we will take toward success. ## **What's Happening in Life? with Billur Aktürk: Why Aren't Young People Getting Married? –31.01.2021** - They value sharing and being together. - If someone is not getting married because of fear, that fear is rooted in the environment in which they grew up. Their view of marriage and the institution of the family is also influenced by that environment. ## Culture and marriage: - Culture is one of the characteristics that make us human. When people consider marriage, their priorities include financial circumstances, age, education, and, importantly, the other person's cultural and national background and political views. There are also cultural factors relating to the period before and after marriage: Premarital rituals can be a source of stress for men. On the other hand, some people marry because cultural pressure makes them feel obliged to do so. Making a decision under cultural pressure is therefore risky. A decision to marry should be based on a desire to invest in the relationship and be part of it. Decisions made in this way are healthier than those driven by cultural pressure. - Marriage and finances: When we look at marriage and finances, we see that young people view marriage as a step into adulthood. Before marrying, they place importance on completing their education and gaining financial independence. Financial well-being matters in marriage, but beyond that, how couples manage their finances matters; how they allocate and organize their money is more important. How are the available resources used? Although finances are one of the most important sources of stress in marriage, we should also consider how those resources are used. - Perspectives on marriage and life: Of course, there is no secret or magic formula for a happy marriage. However, research indicates that humor is very important for relationship satisfaction. Other factors include fidelity, love, friendship, and honesty. These concepts may carry different meanings within the dynamics of each relationship. [← Previous Self-Help Tools When Direct Access to Therapy Is Unavailable](https://alisanburak.com/en/kendine-yardim-araclari-kitaplar-siteler-uygulamalar)[Next → Two Recently Published Studies on Children and Adolescents](https://alisanburak.com/en/cocukmakaleler) --- Kaynak / Source: https://alisanburak.com/en/mutluluk-ve-mutlulugun-sirri-billur-akturk-ile-neler-oluyor-hayatta İletişim / Contact: Bağdat Caddesi, Veli Güneysu Apt. No:453 K:4 D:9, Suadiye / Kadıköy, İstanbul · +90 532 642 95 25 · info@alisanburak.com · https://alisanburak.com/bagdat-caddesi-psikoterapi-iletisim