Ask any person about what it is they want from life, follow up each response with “why do you want that?” and you’ll almost surely end up at a universally familiar answer: Happiness. But are we sure we know what that even is? Or that we all mean the same thing when we talk about wanting to be happy? In the video I add some nuance and complexity to this often over-simplified concept.
Perhaps the most common definition of happiness that we routinely run into is that happiness equals pleasurable feelings. We equate the rush of neurotransmitters and hormones with this desirable emotional state. This is definitely one key manifestation of ‘happy,’ but I want to invite us to consider that there’s more to it than that.
If we narrowly define this desired state simply and only as moment-to-moment subjective feelings of pleasure, we trap ourselves in a fairly small space. The paradox of living only so as to rely on these fleeting emotional states can doom us, in fact, to unhappiness:
“Happiness is not the endless pursuit of pleasant experiences – that sounds more like a recipe for exhaustion – but a way of being that results from cultivating a benevolent mind, emotional balance, inner freedom, inner peace, and wisdom. Each of these qualities is a skill that can be enhanced through training the mind.”
Matthieu Ricard
Academic study of Subjective Well-Being has found that the pursuit of meaning and engagement are more predictive of life satisfaction and happiness than the pursuit of pleasure (that narrowest, simplest definition of happiness). The same research suggests, however, that the pursuit of pleasure is still an important piece of the puzzle.
When we add some other elements into a more complex definition of happiness, we can still enjoy the pleasurable-feelings part of it, but also expand to focus on other qualities of well-being and human flourishing.
If you feel unsure about how to broaden your definition of happiness, or are impeded from it by difficult experiences and issues, feel free to reach out to us.
Photo by Yi Liu
