Happiness Revisited
Once in a while, I like to revisit questions I've addressed in the past. In an early column about happiness, I concluded that "happiness is activity; . . . a happy life is a combination of enjoying what you have and an effort to have something more or different". In preparing this column, I looked to other commentators and found many diverse reactions to the question.
One writer looked to psychology in defining happiness. He noted that psychologists often define happiness as an accumulation of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. He criticized them for failing to answer questions such as whether it matters if we're happy. A philosopher noted that happiness isn't about feeling good it's about being good. Another writer suggested that happiness results from purpose, or rather that purpose is more important than happiness and will result in a meaningful life, whatever our emotional reaction to events.
While agreeing to some extent with these writers, I don't think their writing is helpful to us. To me, their writing suggests that there is no such thing as happiness in the way most of us define it. Questions about whether happiness matters, or whether it is less important than purpose, or whether happiness is about being good to me miss the mark. I believe that happiness matters, whatever our definition, because the pursuit of happiness is engrained as a purpose of life. I believe that we must find purpose, and accept the value of our purpose, in order to proceed with life. I certainly believe that being good is a worthwhile purpose but I also think it's important to feel good about our lives.
I guess I still like my early definition. Activity is critical in life; without it, we tend to become self-indulgent and slothful. I also continue to believe that we must enjoy what we have in life or we tend to become envious of others. And, I believe, it is worthwhile to seek more or different experiences both as a way of learning and as a way of keeping us moving in life. But more than anything else I believe we must strive to help others: Only by helping others can we feel good about ourselves.
9-4-06
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