Three Ways to Think About Happiness and the Meaning of Life
Practical Strategies on Happiness, Meaning, and Wisdom
Is happiness the meaning of life? Yes, according to Aristotle, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim…” But how does one begin to cultivate happiness? “Happiness is not something that you can find, acquire, or achieve directly,” writes the psychologist Jonathan Haidt in The Happiness Hypothesis.
1. Finding Happiness
To the question, where does one find happiness? Haidt suggests,
You have to get the conditions right and then wait. Some of those conditions are within you, such as coherence among the parts and levels of your personality. Other conditions require relationships with things beyond you: Just as plants need sun, water, and good soil to thrive, people need love, work, and a connection to something larger.
Are you getting enough of what you need to cultivate happiness? If not, what might be getting in the way?
Similarly, the psychologist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl suggested that success, much like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and this only occurs as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause larger than themselves.
Is the virtuous life specific enough for something larger than ourselves?
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explained that the happy person lives according to complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance, but throughout a complete life. “Happiness then is found to be something perfect and self-sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.”
Although one must acknowledge that happiness cannot exist without suffering, light without darkness, and structure without flexibility.
2. The Art of Suffering
In one of my favorite books, No Mud, No Lotus, the late Zen Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “The art of happiness is also the art of suffering well.” We suffer much less by learning to acknowledge, embrace, and understand our suffering. We can also go further and transform our suffering into understanding, compassion, and joy for ourselves and others.
One of the most challenging things to accept is the notion that there is no realm where there’s only happiness and no suffering. If we focus exclusively on pursuing happiness, observed Hanh, we may regard suffering as something to be ignored or resisted.
To the question, Why do I suffer? Hanh explained,
Thinking we should be able to have a life without any suffering is as deluded as thinking we should be able to have a left side without a right side.
If one begins the search for wisdom, are they also searching for happiness?
3. The Wisdom of Happiness
Learning to find happiness and the art of suffering seem to connect with wisdom. In his Essays, the sixteenth-century philosopher Michel de Montaigne observed that cheerfulness is the surest sign of wisdom.
According to Montaigne,
The soul in which philosophy dwells should by its health make even the body healthy. It should make its tranquillity and gladness shine out from within; should form in its own mold the outward demeanor and consequently arm it with a graceful pride, an active and joyous bearing, and a contented and good-natured countenance.
We are wise to think about wisdom and happiness as actions.
Aristotle observed, “Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, and brave by doing brave acts.”
Not surprisingly, we become wiser (and happier) by beginning to search for wisdom. As the father of modern psychology, William James, put it, “Actions seem to follow feeling, but actions and feeling go together… Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness is lost, is to sit up cheerfully and act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.”
Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful. You can listen to similar short reflections on the Perennial Meditations podcast.
Until next time, be wise and be well,