Beyond the Next High: What Makes Teen Happiness Last?

At fifteen, people started calling him "the fun guy." He always had some fresh reel for you, something ridiculous to send as a meme, or plans for the coming weekend—through gaming, or having long calls, or food delivered till late. To an external eye, he was living the best life.

If you'd asked him what happiness was, he would have answered, "Having fun." Not being bored. Life being nice. "That's what psychologists term 'hedonic happiness': the enjoyment, experience, and seeking out of pleasure and comfortable feelings, and avoiding pain and discomfort. It's the "feel good now" aspect of well-being.

But one evening, scrolling through his phone after another “perfect” day, he noticed a strange heaviness. The jokes felt repetitive, the likes didn’t feel exciting anymore, and the thought came to him: If I stopped doing all of this, would anything really matter? 

Two kinds of happiness:

Psychologists tend to speak about hedonic well-being as an issue of subjective assessment of your satisfaction, of whether you feel well and positive emotions ('How are you feeling in this very moment?' type questions). On the contrary, eudaimonic well-being concerns how you are developing and how you are living—it is related to purpose in life, a sense of meaningful existence and life, personal growth, and good relationships and behavior in agreement with values. Similar traits can also be discussed relating to Carol Ryff's (popular eudaimonic framework) explanation of the "dimensions of well-being." 

For instance, self-acceptance, positive regard and positive views of self, self-regard, continuing development of the self, positive attitude towards the self as a developing individual, purpose in life, independence or self-determination, mastery of the environment, relations with other people, and positive relationships with others are all aspects of well-being.

But both types of happiness are important to adolescents. A recent systematic review of tools for measuring the hedonic and affective levels of well-being of adolescents within Latin American schools, for example, reports that higher hedonic well-being (feeling good, positive emotion) is related to improved health indicators, both physical and mental. In terms of the eudaimonic level, the data indicates that higher levels are related to improved levels of self-esteem, self-acceptance, and meaningful activity.

To put it very simply: well-being keeps you healthy, and a feeling of meaning and development in life keeps your inner strength up when tough stuff happens to your outer life.

Teenage life: lots of pleasure

School days broken into segments of hedonic bliss:

1. The laughter in hallways between classes,

2. The quick check of how many views his story had gained and how fast they were accelerating,

3. Counting the minutes to the next free period or to the end of the day, and subsequently to the next weekend.

He felt so much high whenever something was fun, but the moment anything went wrong—he received a poor mark, had a disagreement with his parents, or got left 'seen.' He became depressed and irritable or lay on his bed at night thinking, 'Why does nothing feel enough?'.

Regarding research on hedonic and eudaimonic motives, it appears that if one is highly focused on positive affect without the additional concern with growth, meaning, and contribution, then subjective well-being can become quite susceptible to negative outcomes. Affect is more susceptible to external events (rising with good fortunes and plummeting with bad), and one is also more prone to anxieties and insecurities.

This becomes especially important in adolescence, as during adolescence a roller-coaster ride of emotions occurs. People constantly compared among them (popular/unpopular, good-looking/bad-looking, successful/not successful, etc.). There is hyperactivity of brain systems associated with rewards/novelty and immaturity of brain systems responsible for self-control. If "happiness" is synonymous with pleasure/liking and comfort, then many adolescents will chase pleasure, which offers a fleeting high, but it will not develop robustness and mental health.

Building eudaimonic happiness: small changes, big impact

Mental health education programs can contribute to adolescents in learning how to embrace hedonic and eudaimonic well-being as opposed to picking an approach and foregoing the other. In the following months, the teenage boy participated in a variety of small experiments:

Proactive engagement rather than mere escape from the stressor. The help began, and he started tutoring his younger cousin on weekends; not everything was "joyful" while it was occurring, but, looking back, he had a calm feeling of pride—a warm eudaimonic glow.

Ethical and value-driven choice in the digital world : There are a multitude of superficial trending trends; he questioned, "Is this what I wanted the internet to believe I wanted?" There were times he opted out; there was no attention or dopamine rush but instead a subtle peace for upholding his sense of self.

Growth and learning can be fun—the coding club at school started off rough and daunting, and as he progressed and understood more and more, satisfaction arose in knowing that he had acquired new skills over the hour, and his developing understanding and belief in himself slowly grew.

Why this difference matters for mental health awareness:

The awareness of differences between hedonic and eudaimonic happiness is not simply an intellectual exercise but a critically valuable mental health message for teens:

Hedonic happiness—fun, joy, rest, and comfort—isn't bad. We need it to function.

Eudaimonic joy (purpose, growth, belonging, meaning) is the energy that is responsible for teens "staying up" when they are no longer in that happy place and giving them a reason to rise, reach, recover, and show up.

Without this understanding:

• Teens might evaluate their whole life solely on whether it feels fun each day.
• They may dismiss perfectly normal sadness or boredom as "proof their life is falling apart."
• They might disregard currently difficult tasks—like practicing an instrument, studying, or helping others—that will grow their well-being for a lifetime.

With this understanding, schools and families are creating meaning:

That includes not just what they learn about the behavior, but whether they believe in the "purpose and meaning," whether they are growing, and what their values are. Clubs, arts, athletics, service, and all should not be an addition but a protection; normal conversation could be "What makes life meaningful?" as easily as "Did you like your friends?"