The Looking Glass: What Aladdin Should have Wished For

A letter to my daughter about happiness

Dear Readers,

Where has the time gone? The sun casts its daily spells and now the twilight of another year upon us.

I’ve spilled much digital ink this past year, but I’ve been negligent on this blog as of late. My mind has been in other places — with my company, my family, or simply trying to observe itself like some kind of ouroboros. I’ve watched roiling waves. I’ve lived weather.

I’ll conclude 2024 not with any recent insights, but with a portion of a project that I’ve been working on and off on. It’s a series of letters to my daughter, about everything I’d like her to know about the world. Which of course raises the question: What do I really know about the world?

The honest answer today is: Very little. Even now, when I look back on earlier letters I’ve written, I find myself doubting what I say. It seems that everything I put into words, my mind can also find a way to negate. More and more, this experience leaves me humbled. What a trip this continued search for Truth is!

Thank you for being with me for another year, dear Readers. I wish the warmest glows upon you this holiday season. I wish you every type of happiness there is.

Yours,

~Julie

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Aladdin and the Three Types of Happiness

Dear LenLen,

Do you remember the movie Aladdin, about a poor boy from the slums who, along with his ill-mannered monkey, goes to the Cave of Wonders and finds a lamp inhabited by a magical genie?

The genie tells Aladdin he’ll grant him 3 wishes.

Now, this is the kind of scenario that all of us dream of.

3 wishes!

What would you wish for, LenLen? Write it down below:

Here were some of my answers from when I’d play this game as a kid:

1. More wishes — alas, this is cheating and not allowed as per genie-rules

2. World peace — who wouldn’t want less fighting in the world?

3. Ability to fly — because that sounds so fun

4. Ability to read minds — never be stumped on a test again

5. Everyone always like me — particularly useful during those angsty teen years

6. Ability to control time — keep those amazing Saturday nights rolling for weeks… or months!

Honestly, I thought Aladdin did a poor job of making wishes. His first wish was Make me a prince in order to impress Jasmine, which has 2 big problems — 1) Jasmine is zero impressed by princes 2) wishing for a finite amount of gold and elephants is obviously less useful than wishing for a skill that can create an infinite amount of gold and elephants.

Imagine if he had wished to be the world’s most effective salesperson instead — then that gold and elephant train would never end!

Aladdin’s second wish was Save me from downing! — again, a C-plus wish at best because why not go for something longer-lasting, like Let me be strong enough to break my chains or Let me breath underwater?

To Aladdin’s credit, his third wish was pretty good. (Plus, he got the ability to fly without even wishing for it, with that adorable magic-carpet-puppy.)

Now that I am older, the question of “What should I wish for?” becomes cliche as to be boring: I wish for unending happiness for every living!, a sentiment also shared in a three-hundred year old popular Christmas song.

Could anything be more aspirational? After all, isn’t the whole point of everything we do — marrying a princess, acquiring gold, freeing a genie — towards happiness?

But as we’ve discussed before, happiness is an elusive rainbow that never stays. So how could a genie even fulfill this wish?

The good news, LenLen, is that there’s been quite a bit of research done by scientists on what happiness is and how we can capture more of it. Through their good work, we have some clues on how we can live happier.

It helps to start by asking ourselves: What does happiness feel like, and what things cause us to feel happy?

You might notice that there are actually a few different flavors of happiness.

For example, how would you compare the below?

1. The happiness of eating a plate of your favorite sushi

2. The happiness of working on and then completing a challenging Lego set

3. The happiness of helping your teammates work together to win a soccer game

Happiness researchers notice this too, and they have theory for what makes these buckets different.

The first (eating your favorite food) we’ll call pleasure — that momentary feeling of joy that you get from rushing down a water slide, or taking a bite of cold, creamy cookies-n-cream ice cream, or listening to your favorite Taylor Swift song.

If it feels good in the moment and delights our senses, we can say that it is pleasurable. The pleasure of a moment tends to increase if we do it with others (imagine going down a water slide with a friend) because it’s more likely to turn into a long-lasting happy memory.

The second bucket is enjoyment. Enjoyment is different from pleasure in that it needs an element of challenge. The reason we enjoy a complex lego set, or passing a video game level after failing a bunch of times, is that it feels fun to master the challenge.

We crave a sense of accomplishment and pride, which only comes when we’re working in our challenge zone. Of course it can’t be too hard — then we get discouraged. (This explains why you don’t want to play Peek-a-Boo all day long—when things are too easy and lack challenge, we call it boring.)

Finally, the third bucket is satisfaction. Satisfaction is different from the other two because it is rooted in a sense of greater purpose. When you feel a sense of purpose, you aren’t just trying to help yourself, you’re working for something that is bigger than yourself.

For example, a player on a soccer team typically cares more about helping their entire team win than gaining prestige for themselves. When they do their best to defend an opposing player, or pass the ball to a better scorer, they feel immense pride in the overall team’s victory.

What’s interesting about looking at these distinct flavors of happiness is that we need to do different things to achieve them!

For example, increasing pleasure means you would focus on doing the things you like more often, and try to do them with more people, even if there isn’t much challenge or greater purpose. More sushi! More water slides! More Taylor Swift songs!

Increasing enjoyment means seeking out challenges which might actually conflict with increasing pleasure. For example, you might choose tough exercises that tire out your muscles (which doesn’t feel as pleasurable as lounging around watching Netflix in your PJs), but after some weeks or months, you feel pride in being able to easily scale the Ninja Warrior challenge course.

And finally, increasing satisfaction means dedicating your hard work towards something that gives you greater meaning.

What is that greater meaning? This is something we all have to find for ourselves.

Your Daddy and I feel that raising you and your siblings have given our lives a deep sense of purpose — even if it’s hard work and not especially pleasurable in the moment (let’s be real—when you kiddos are all crying your heads off in the car, it’s certainly not pleasurable!) But we feel fulfillment when you learn and grow and experience the wonders and joy that every day brings.

Some people feel this sense of meaning with their jobs (I do with creating Sundial!), or volunteering for their community (like Daddy does when he hosts events for your school), or fighting for their country, or advocating for a cause they passionately believe in.

The day-to-day work may be grueling and difficult; it may not pay much (if any) money; it may not even always be properly recognized or appreciated. But these people don’t do it for pleasure or glory. They do it because they want to make a difference for others, and that creates its own rich well of happiness.

So, if there’s anything for you to take away from this letter, LenLen, let it be this: 1) Aladdin should have made better wishes 2) I hope you’ll find happiness in spades and 3) Think carefully about how you balance seeking pleasure, enjoyment and satisfaction — in my experience, doing more of the second and third tends to last longer.

With tremendous love,

Mommy

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