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Jessie Haas

Professor Lisa Fitzgerald

English 1

30 September 2017

The Indirect Path to Happiness

If you asked one hundred people, What is happiness? you may very well get as

many different answers. The question is vague and concerns a topic that cannot be quantified

in a lab; there is no objective answer. The response will vary across cultures, time periods,

and individuals. Yet many of us take for granted that we know what happiness is, and that our

definition of happiness is universal, understood by all (Markman). If we believe we know

what happiness is, then we have ideas about how to achieve it. Our definition of happiness

shapes our efforts towards being happy, and if our understanding of happiness is misguided,

then our efforts will be misguided. Understanding that happiness does not lie in extrinsic

circumstances, and that happiness is not a judgement that your life is good enough, helps us

to let go of things that do not make us happy and helps us to become an active participant in

that which does: forgetting about happiness altogether and working towards personal

fulfilment.

If you were to conduct a survey on the definition of happiness, although the answers

would vary from person to person, there might be some common themes, with two standout

responses: happiness as extrinsic circumstances, and happiness as general life satisfaction

(Markman; Haybron). These definitions have their shortcomings in that if one believes the

answer lies in either definition, their efforts to achieve happiness will fail.

Across many cultures, the idea of happiness being linked to extrinsic circumstances is

prevalent (Markman). If asked, What would make you happy?, many people would think
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of achievements, milestones, or acquiring material things, such as landing a dream job,

getting married, or receiving a large sum of money. However, research shows that even

though these types of events and possessions may temporarily cause happiness, people adapt

very quickly to new life circumstances, and that which once made you happy, even if it is still

present in your life, no longer brings your emotional state above neutral (Defining and

Measuring Happiness 7-8). Your dream job, your spouse, or a large inheritance eventually

feels like the norm and isnt enough to make you happy anymore. Even people who have won

the lottery are not any happier one year later than people who did not win the lottery

(Defining and Measuring Happiness 8). If your happiness relies on fortunate events or

external circumstances, you will be constantly thinking ahead to the next thing that will make

you happy, only to start the process over again once you attain it.

If the individual circumstances of your life, even the very good ones, do not make you

happy, then surely a better way to measure happiness is through a big picture approach: are

you content overall? The obvious answer to the question of happiness, for many people, is

overall life satisfaction (Haybron). However, this understanding of happiness is not without

issue. A person living in poverty who cannot afford to go to the doctor or buy a car that

doesnt break down every month might be miserable all the time, but when he drives by a

homeless encampment on his way to work every day he might be satisfied that his life is not

worse. A doctor in a war-torn country may feel her life has meaning and is worthwhile, and

in that sense is satisfied with her life, but if she is constantly living in fear of a drone strike,

she might not be happy. In these examples, satisfaction seems more like resignation

(Haybron).

When you let go of your long-held myths about what brings happiness or what the

very nature of happiness is, you stop wasting time chasing after things that will inevitably not

bring happiness. But what should you be doing instead? As far back as Ancient Greece and
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Ancient India, but persistent through many millennia of philosophical thought, is the concept

of happiness as fulfilment of the self (Haybron). Self-fulfilment is knowing who you are,

being true to that in all things, and becoming the best version of yourself. It is living

according to your own nature and living a life that matters to you. As Robert Louis Stevenson

said, To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of

life (164). But self-fulfilment is not synonymous with selfishness. Your self-fulfilment could

lie in dedicating your life to helping others, or your self-fulfilment could lie in cultivating

strong relationships with the people that you love. Today psychologists say there are multiple

paths to happiness; helping others and strong relationships are two of many (Defining and

Measuring Happiness 10, 12). But perhaps happiness is more in picking the path than in the

paths themselves. Happiness is in choice, in living according to your nature, and in having

agency.

But there is one more step, and it may seem counter-intuitive: forgetting about the

concept of happiness all together. A goal like happiness can be overwhelming. When you

think that if you are not happy then your life will not have been worth living, you create an

enormous amount of pressure on yourself to be happy. Judging your lifes worth based on

one thing, especially when that one thing is abstract and ill-defined, is setting yourself up for

failure. And thinking about abstract concepts such as happiness sacrifices another important

thing: being present in the moment. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that people

are happiest when they are going with the flow and not overthinking things (Finding Flow).

Other studies have shown that mindfulness, or being present in the moment, makes for

generally happier people (Defining and Measuring Happiness 10-12). Personal fulfilment

should be attempted for the sake of personal fulfilment, not for achieving happiness. Personal

fulfilment is a reward in of itself. Author and philosopher Albert Camus says of happiness,
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You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will

never live if you are looking for the meaning of life (157).

In the novel Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, the main character,

Philip Carey, is given a Persian rug by a man named Cronshaw who tells him the rug holds

the key to the meaning of life. It isnt until later in the novel that Philip understands what

Cronshaw meant. The pattern of a Persian rug represents a human life, and every pattern,

every life, is different. Happiness is only part of the pattern, Philip realizes, not any more

important than pain. Maugham writes, His life had seemed horrible when it was measured

by happiness, but now he seemed to gather strength as he realized that it might be measured

by something else. Happiness mattered as little as pain (527). Instead of happiness being the

end goal, a person could find meaning simply in creating the pattern. And if in the end, your

pattern was your own, chosen by you, then you will have achieved your personal fulfilment.

You should strive to get rid of myths about happiness that ultimately only stand in your way

and follow your own path without overthinking whether or not you are happy. If you are true

to yourself, you may stumble upon happiness along the way.


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Works Cited

Camus, Albert. Youthful Writings. Vintage Books. 1976.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Finding Flow. Psychology Today, 9 Jun. 2016,

www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199707/finding-flow.

Defining and Measuring Happiness. Positive Psychology, 2011, pp. 712. EBSCOhost,

ezproxy.lbcc.edu:2048/loginurl=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.

aspxdirect=true&db=c9h&AN=71429338&site=ehost-live.

Haybron, Daniel M. Happiness and Its Discontents. The New York Times, 13 Apr. 2014,

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/happiness-and-its-discontents/.

Markman, Art. What Does It mean to Be Happy? Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 20

May 2013, www.psychologytoday.com/experts/art-markman-phd.

Maugham, W. Somerset. Of Human Bondage. The Modern Library, 1915.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Familiar Studies of Men and Books. London, Chatto and Windus.

1882.

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