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culture, happiness, health, Inspirational, Integrity, Philosophy, Self-Help, tv, United States, virtue
In our culture, and even in our founding documents, we are told that the “pursuit of happiness” is one of our greatest rights and highest ideals. We are told that happiness is the best pursuit and the purpose of our lives, and why not? Don’t we want to be happy? Isn’t that better than the alternative? Why would anyone not want to be happy?
So why the critique? Hold on and I think you might come to agree with me (and if not, it will make for great conversation!).
I am convinced that the pursuit of happiness has disastrous effects on the human condition. As a father, I am not concerned one whit with my children’s happiness, and yet I think I am a good, kind, and caring father. So what gives?
Here is my belief: happiness, that fleeting and euphoric feeling we get when we think we are “happy,” is illusory and dangerous because it is so fleeting and it comes when we satiate our immediate desires for self-gratification, but rarely lasts beyond the moment. If we pursue happiness, we end up chasing that feeling (much like an addict seeking the “high”), and we become disappointed when we don’t achieve it or frustrated when it doesn’t last. In the end, we tend to be less happy than before (for a tragic look at this paradox, see a recent article in Time magazine titled, “$500 Million Powerball Jackpot: The Tragic Stories of the Lottery’s Unluckiest Winners” http://ti.me/V5VElq).
And yet our culture is greased upon the wheels of this myth by telling us that if only we would buy this product or use this service, we would find happiness. Watch just about any commercial, and the message you hear will be this: you are incomplete, unsatisfied, and unfulfilled until you use this soap! buy this lipstick! purchase this data plan! wear this Snuggie! (check out how happy these folk are now that they have that Snuggie! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xZp-GLMMJ0)! Once you do, happiness is yours! Rush down to your nearest store! Go online and click! Call now! Don’t wait! Happiness is just a purchase away!
The danger, of course, is that this message relies on your belief that you are, indeed, unhappy and unfulfilled now and that what you want and need is that feeling of happiness in order to be complete.
And that is the very message I want to counter in my own children. As I said, I don’t care one whit that they are happy, but I care with my very life that they are whole. I care that they become good, wise, virtuous, kind, just men of integrity who care for others and work to make the world a better place. This vision has little to do with their happiness. What would make them happy would rarely make them whole. My son loves chocolate donuts, and nothing would make him happier than to eat as many chocolate donuts as he wants whenever he wants, but that would not make him whole (whole in this case = healthy). Watching tv all day would make him happy, but not whole. Get my point?
So am I a just a miserly Scrooge bent on bah humbugging everything? Not at all! I believe that the pursuit of wholeness, meaning, wisdom and virtue satisfies our deeper longings for contentment that lasts beyond the euphoric, fleeting feelings of happiness we experience from time to time. When we give our lives to pursuing wholeness, I think we will be happy more often that not; when we pursue mere happiness, we lose both.
For example, if I wanted to be “happy” in my marriage, my wife and I both would probably have separated years ago, for there are many moments when neither one of us feels “happy,” but by pursuing wholeness in our marriage (trust, commitment honesty, understanding, etc.), we get happiness as a byproduct more often than not.
My fear is that, for too many of us, the pursuit of happiness has us bouncing from job to job, relationship to relationship, fix to fix. Rather, if we would pursue meaning, purpose and wisdom, we would find that, even in those moments when we suffer, we have a deeper foundation upon which we can rely.
That, then, is why I don’t care about my children’s happiness, and why I think that’s a good thing.
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Unfortunately the Declaration of Independance clause “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” lies as a foundation of our nation, therefore it is part of over three centuries of cultural value defect. Our ancestors were a bit hedonistic. Or perhaps the connotation surrounding “happiness” has changed over the centuries. I certainly feel that the desperation to attain it has become vastly more important to average Americans. While I wholeheartedly agree with you, it doesnt help that capitalism’s supply and demand/cutthroat competition themes underscore the value of happiness in our economic lives. If you can modify how this generation perceives the importance of happiness, you can change the world.
I think of happiness as an illusion, rather than a myth. Or perhaps a mirage on the horizon! A bit like romantic love…I agree that you often find it when you are not trying to…
Ted Radio Hour did a special on happiness which you might find interesting. Dan Gilbert’s in particular showed how we are lousy at figuring out what makes us happy and we often sabotage our own happiness–yet another reason not to rely on happiness as an indicator of anything.
http://blog.ted.com/2012/05/04/the-pursuit-of-happiness-listen-now-to-ted-radio-hour-episode-2/
Thank you! I’ll take a listen!
Interesting topic – I don’t think you’ll find anyone to take on the opposing argument. Happiness is a feckless, fleeting feeling.
The question becomes, what do we seek rather than this illusive happiness, and why?
You mention wholeness but how does one find and/or define it? How can one know when one has reached it or is even on the right road to it…perhaps wholeness is a journey rather than a destination?
Even the concept of pursuit – it’s an activity, perhaps it can be defined as living? The “pursuit of” becomes the getting up out of bed and making one decision after another with a goal in mind? Perhaps it’s a matter of priorities setup in ones life that determines the road one travels.
One of my favorite books is Pilgrim’s Progress and just like Ecclesiastes it is a story of struggle to find “it.” The struggle to find that something that is more stable than happiness.
It is a struggle though, isn’t it? An on-going debate to define “it?” Wise men know it isn’t happiness…Ecclesiastes determines that “it” is wisdom because wisdom keeps you from pursuing empty pleasures
We either learn, philosophize and struggle to find something meaningful or we simply live without thought…allowing the breeze to blow us in one direction or another. Those that choose the latter are in pursuit of happiness…as is their right in the US. Those that choose the road-less-traveled want more, they may or may not know what “more” is though.
FD
Tremendous response! Very thoughtful and thought provoking! I love the connection to Ecclesiastes. I think you are right; we must live intentionally in our pursuit of wisdom or get blown about by the winds of culture. Living intentionally is one step on the road to wisdom. Thanks for pushing the conversation forward!
The writer of Ecclesiastes, in a summery, concluded, after “doing it all” (including purposeful vice); “having it all” (including immense wealth, women, land, autonomy AND wisdom), that everything under the sun was like vapor, here today and gone and forgotten tomorrow. Life was meaningless, WISDOM was meaningless, happiness was fleeting, the next generation would destroy all he had built up. The only meaning he could find was a belief in (and fear of) a Divine Creator, the generator of life; that life was more than the seasons and circular, unending, dreary tasks; that he was part of a greater whole. So while your topic is HAPPINESS, and the reasons why happiness should be struck from our vocabulary, why is wisdom any less fleeting if a Greater Being is not introduced into the mix? What is the worth of finding wisdom in the “70 odd” years of the average lifespan if there is nothing after it? And who defines “wisdom” if there is no Creator? And, then reasoning would have to say: who cares? Why not “do what is right in my own eyes” and embrace hedonism in the nanosecond of time we have as a conscious being?
I think we can know when we’ve become successful at reaching or coming close to fulfilling our search for wholeness; it’s when we are content with our self and the direction our life has taken. It’s a sense of calm, of not having to search and doubt and question. I believe the feeling of wholeness will be like arriving at a destination. You just know that you’ve arrived at the right place and nobody needs to tell you.
I think you’re on to something here!
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I will most certainly come to the defense of happiness. With the hope of good conversation, of course, I must disagree with your very description of the word. It is the fork in the philosophical road. I believe that the feeling you are describing is pleasure, not happiness. Pleasure is fleeting, fickle, easily aroused and easily satiated. The disappointment that is created when we try, fail, and get that feeling of being “less happy than before we tried” merely shows that we were misdirected – that we misjudged pleasure for happiness. True happiness is not something that can be created by the trickery of marketing professionals, but something deeper and richer. Aristotle would never allow you to so disgrace the true happiness by comparing it – as an opposing force, no less! – to virtue, wisdom, or kindness. Do you truly believe that a person could be true, just, wise, virtuous, and kind and be *unhappy*? If not, can happiness really be so abhorrent a thing in itself? A person seeking true happiness – even as his primary desire – will find it coupled with all these other forms of goodness. Happiness is precisely what you ARE teaching your son to pursue by encouraging the traits you listed; you are setting his course toward happiness rather than pleasure, the good rather than the easy. Donuts and television are easy and pleasurable, but exercise is good and brings happiness. Happiness IS the thing that holds your marriage together because although you might disagree with each other or become frustrated with one another, the relationship generates happiness when taken as a whole – not as these measly moments of discontent. A pursuit of happiness presses us to see things as they are entirely rather than superficially or at one moment. A pursuit of happiness might still guide you toward that adorable Snuggie, but the reasons would be solid and unmanipulated by advertising illusions (they may not turn out to be right, though, as our pursuit of happiness is filled with as many failures and learning opportunities as our pursuit of justice or truth). Happiness itself is not a bad thing; allowing pleasure to confuse you into believing it to be happiness, however, very much is. In addition, I think that happiness absolutely *should* be sought after fervently and actively – too often do people become lazy and stop trying to discover what makes them happy and begin to merely follow in the footsteps of others’ methods of achieving this essential goal. What a catastrophe! – that we as such amazing, thinking beings would give up our search for our own happiness in favor of someone else’s! Self-reflection, patience, determination, courage, and perseverance – *these* are the faculties of man that are fostered and actuated in a pursuit of happiness, and their regular use will bring you your feeling of contentment, of “lasting,” and of wholeness all at the same time.
The wonderful thing, I have found, about having a blog is that it creates space for conversation that holds me accountable for my writing and the words I choose. You are right in that what we are told is “happiness” is more often than not mere “pleasure” in its most Freudian sense, and that this is the problem we face in modern culture. We are told that we must satisfy our base pleasure-principles without giving much thought to what might make us truly satisfied, whole, or virtuous. The other thing that I will stick to is that our present definition of happiness is far removed from what Aristotle had in mind when he wrote about eudaimonia–happiness as human flourishing and wholeness as the result of a life virtuously lived. In short, it seems that you and I might be talking about the same thing, though we use different terms for it. This is the problem with the English language: it makes it so hard to say anything!
Thank you for the great discussion!
I, too, believe that we want the same things (alas! that our poor English language could be such a medley of fantastic languages but remain almost entirely dysfunctional when it comes to words with a true depth of meaning!). I think our language barrier here is probably caused by the very difference in personal direction that you and I want to snuff out; the Greek language is filled with soulful words that reflect their general cultural pursuit of all of the virtues you and I have been discussing, but our culture is adding such words as “Long Island Iced Tea,” “senioritis,” and “Control-Alt-Delete” to the tomes of linguistic development. Our pleasure-seeking, market-driven culture is molding our language, and through it, our understanding of the world. (This is precisely why proper education is so incredibly important! As this generation of children learns English from the world around them, they will constantly see the word “happiness” exchanged with “pleasure” and understand them to be the same!) And this is, of course, why these conversations are so exquisite; they remind us that thinkers have a very real duty (and ability) to guide their societies toward the best things. And they also remind us that, as the world continues to fall into a pool of apathy, entitlement, and bewilderment, we can choose a different way. Thank you for being a part of that change & encouraging others to come with you.
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