Is the purpose of life really to be happy?

And why does it matter?

Day-to-day life revolves around completing a series of tasks. But what happens once all your to-dos are done, the dishes are clean, your teeth are flossed?

Collect another set of to-dos from work, dirty some more dishes, rinse, and repeat. Ad infinitum.

Sometimes, fleeting moments of clarity breakthrough, in between our jobs, our screens, and our podcasts. Why?

Why do I get out of bed every day, make my dumb little bean water, and click-clack at a screen for 12 hours a day, only to reward myself with 2–3 hours of my little screen, just to sleep and do it all over again tomorrow?

Zoom out a bit. Where do I fit in the bigger picture?

Well, I’m just a speck in an infinite universe, so who gives a shit what I do? Does any of this matter anyway?

Oops. Zoomed out too far.

Why does it matter?

Great question. I think many of us can go our lives without really diving into this topic and be just fine. That being said, why should we even bother thinking about it?

Well, for one, I find these moments of why rather crippling. I feel like I’m just going through the motions, doing what everyone does, without any inherently driven purpose. My actions, decisions, and life path are not intrinsically my own; they’re simply a product of my passivity.

I argue that having a defined purpose gives you agency that is otherwise left on the table. You have every right (and you owe it to yourself) to decide your why. It also makes your life easier. You can make decisions with the structure of “does option (a) or (b) bring me closer to my end goal?”, rather than just blindly waffling about.

So, that’s why it matters, I think. I don’t want to live unconsciously, progressing arbitrarily. I want what I do to matter to me, and I believe defining purpose is crucial in that journey.

What is purpose?

Okay, you’re hooked. Fine, give me purpose. But first — what is it?

Generally, purpose is the reason why something exists. The purpose of chairs is to sit in them. The purpose of cars is to transport us. The purpose of dogs is to make humans happy. Etcetera etcetera.

Conceptually, this is simple enough. However, the simplicity of purpose reflects the simplicity of the subject. A chair is an inanimate object that was produced with a clear goal in mind. Humans, on the other hand, are infinitely complex, which makes this conversation a little harder.

Also, this is a big question. Philosophers have been at it for a while, and it seems like the jury’s still out. There are many significant schools of thought: the purpose of life is to be a good person, to maximize your happiness, to maximize your impact on your community.

However, practically speaking, I think all of these different hypotheses can be contained by the belief that the purpose of life is happiness. I know — pretty big claim. But I think it works, at least in part, because happiness is significantly more complex than we generally think it is. It isn’t an achievable static goal, and maintaining it isn’t simply that easy.

What is happiness?

Let’s define what happiness is for the purposes of this argument. Happiness is generally defined as a positive emotional state. Often, happiness can be mischaracterized as just pleasure or instant gratification (especially in conversations about purpose). However, it also comes in more complex forms, like pride, satisfaction, and fulfillment.

For the sake of this argument, I’m going to define happiness as any positive psychological output. At the end of the day, we’re just organisms reacting to positive and negative stimuli, and happiness is our biology saying “yes”. Like most of our traits, our concept of happiness has evolved a certain way to encourage specific behaviors that help us. By utilizing this definition, we can begin to see how most other definitions of purpose fall under striving to be happy.

Happiness is hard

Okay, seems simple enough, right? I just do things that make me happy, and I’ll always be happy. Done. Unfortunately, no. As I mentioned earlier, happiness is meaningfully more complex than we generally characterize it to be. Maximizing happiness isn’t just doing the thing that would make you the happiest at any given time — you might find yourself in a cycle of chasing short-term pleasure (aka hedonism), which may not bring you what you really want.

To fully understand this, let’s dive into a touch of psychology here. One unfortunate thing about the human psyche is that it’s very adaptable. Sounds great, right? Well, in many ways it is, but it also keeps us from being happy for very long.

Hedonic adaptation is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. Therefore, no matter the magnitude, positive stimuli only keep us happy for so long — the happiness payoff from anything is finite, no matter how significant that event is. There are so many cases that we can reference; for example, many studies show that lottery winners are back to their baseline level of happiness (or even lower) within 1 year of winning. So, happiness isn’t a one-and-done ordeal — it’s something we have to always keep working at.

Also, our (overly) complex brains require variety to be satiated. We learn to adapt to the same stimulus, resulting in a smaller psychological response over time. For example, I love donuts. If I was chasing short-term happiness, maybe I would treat myself to a donut every day. But, over time, my brain gets used to this stimulus, and I enjoy it less and less every time — the novelty wears off, and the level of happiness from the stimulus shrinks. So, not only do we have to constantly strive to be happy, we have to also find different stimuli to effectively be happy.

Human nature makes happiness a little complicated

Okay, so does that mean the purpose of life is to seek out a new different thing to make you happy every day? No, not necessarily. Treating happiness like a daily expedition is short-sighted; if we’re thinking about the most effective ways to be happy, let’s think about human nature a little bit.

There are two main components of human nature that are crucial to consider when discussing purpose and happiness:

1. Our level of consciousness: Human beings have a heightened level of consciousness that allows us to create things outside of the physical world. We have systems of beliefs, concepts, and bodies of knowledge that have no tangible presence, but we acknowledge their presence unequivocally. This level of consciousness requires us to go the extra mile to be satiated; we can’t just entertain ourselves by just fulfilling carnal desires. Therefore, any approach rooted 100% in the physical world (e.g., chasing food, sex, drugs) neglects the entire side of our psyche devoted to intangible concepts and beliefs, such as academic achievement and the pursuit of knowledge.
2. Our inherently social biology: Human beings are a social species that rely on cooperation to survive and thrive. We’re basically just primates with slightly larger brains, and one key aspect of our biology is inter-reliance and community building. In other words, it’s in our nature to be a part of society, and we are biologically encouraged to do things we perceive to be useful for the greater good. That’s why we strive to make an impact and find meaning in endeavors that benefit others. That’s why many people commonly strive to “make an impact” — that’s a clear reflection of our society-based nature.

For these reasons, nearsighted and self-serving expeditions for happiness will fall short. True happiness requires acknowledgment of what makes us human, including our need for mental satiety and social devotion.

Self-improvement in happiness

One more thing! Like any organism, the center of our universe is: ourselves.

It’s not as bad as you think. It’s actually pretty simple: you want to feel good about yourself, and that plays a crucial role in your happiness. Believing you’re a capable and good person is essential to being happy, and that’s inextricably connected to a feeling of purpose.

That’s why another way to find happiness (and, subsequently, purpose) is by working on yourself. We enjoy enriching ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally, even if starting those processes is difficult. That’s why, for many of us, things like continued education, fitness, hobbies play a significant role in our lives. These are practices almost solely devoted to self-improvement, and many people find value from working on themselves.

That’s also why we strive for productivity and accomplishment. Setting and achieving goals not only provides a sense of control but a sense of pride that cannot be replicated by chasing short-term and/or external pleasure. That’s why marathon runners are annoyingly happy, and lottery winners have such high rates of suicide.

You: I don’t believe happiness is our purpose

Great, let’s fight about it.

No, but really — most other highly accepted theories about the purpose of life fall can be encompassed into this belief. But before I dive into any examples, let’s make the distinction between things that could be the purpose of life, versus reasons that should be the purpose. I’m not arguing that happiness is the only purpose life can have; I’m simply saying that’s the only purpose life should have. We could be indoctrinated by many schools of thought that would instill a purpose to our lives — like Scientology or being vegan — that shouldn’t be our central purpose.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about some of the main theories of human purpose:

• The purpose of life is to be useful. There are many slight variations of this doctrine, such as utilitarianism, but the main point is basically the same. I agree, to an extent: but we enjoy being useful insofar as it benefits our society-based biology. Being useful makes us happy, as it brings us closer to others, which is rewarded by our inherent biology with dopamine. We are not useful for the sake of utility, nor should we be. Inevitably, we end up deciding to be useful when we realize it will make us happy — not for any other reason.
• The purpose of life is enlightenment. This theory encompasses a lot of different schools of thought, including many religious doctrines. For a few different reasons, this still feeds into the purpose of life being happy. Enlightenment, in most definitions, is tied to the pursuit of knowledge, which appeases our intellectualism. We pursue enlightenment or higher truth because we believe it will make us better, which is also something that makes us happy. At the end of the day, we would not seek enlightenment for enlightenment alone — it appeals to our intellectualism and our need for self-improvement.
• There is no purpose to life. Here is another significant belief that I think simply should not be anyone’s frame of mind. As I stated earlier, the real reason we should define the purpose of life is to use that framework to structure our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Obviously, this frame of thought does not bring us any closer to that goal. Many people stick to this belief because it’s the most “accurate” or “true”, but, at the end of the day, there is no right or wrong answer here. There’s no instruction manual that came with our species, and it’s an intra-species responsibility to define what is human purpose. By saying there simply is none, you’re just not completing the assignment.

What does this mean?

If you’re still here, I’m assuming you agree with me, you’re at least intrigued, or you’re a religious fanatic scrolling to the bottom to leave a comment about how the Lord is our only purpose. Regardless, I have a little summary for all of you!

Now that we’ve defined happiness as our purpose, what do we do with that information — how do we make it actionable?

At a high level, here’s what we’ve established: happiness is a complicated and constant process, which requires variety, intellectual stimulation, social benefit, and self-improvement.

So, with that information, be happy! Life is simply a balance of different things that bring you happiness. Find a good mix of things that:

• Make you short-term happy (cookies, sex)
• Enrich your intangible consciousness (education, reading, writing)
• Assist in your self-improvement (books, cooking, sports)
• Help you contribute to society rather than just constantly consuming (volunteering, having a job that has a meaningful impact)

Creating a life devoted to your own happiness is not selfish. A comprehensive definition of happiness shows us that it’s not just what gives us pleasure, but it’s also what’s good for us and what’s good for those around us. And it’s not as hard as we think!