Both clinical wisdom and empirical research agree that the more we fixate on happiness, the more elusive it becomes. In essence, if a mind continually measures its own joy, it will, slowly but surely, begin to lose sight of it.

The worst part is that our cultural atmosphere makes disengagement almost impossible. We’re optimizing our habits, logging our moods, tracking our sleep and consuming endless advice on how to be “better.” The pursuit of happiness has become an industry and, in the process, a burden.

Against this backdrop, psychologist Ole Höffken’s recent work, published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, offers us an unexpected remedy. Höffken posits in his paper that happiness is not an end-state to be captured, but an evolved process to be understood.

From an evolutionary perspective, happiness is actually considered a delicate equilibrium between emotional states, each with its own function. The happiest version of oneself, then, is not the one that feels good all the time, but possibly one whose inner ecology is functioning as evolution intended.

Happiness is, as Höffken writes, “a specific favorable balance between certain positive and certain negative affects.” In other words, happiness is not the dominance of pleasure, nor the absence of pain. Instead, it’s the maintenance of a highly specific, dynamic ratio between joy and sorrow (and other positive and negative emotions).

This reframing can help restore depth to an emotion that our........

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