Pursuit of Happiness

What does it mean to be happy? Well, according to the google dictionary, it means “feeling or showing pleasure or contentment,” but I disagree. Happiness is complicated and hard to understand. Some people convince themselves they are happy when they are not, so it can not be as simple as a feeling, and people pretend to be happy to fit in, so it does not always show. The world we live in seems to expect people to feel joy, and it can often make you feel like it is not okay to feel any different emotions.

To find happiness, you have to understand what it is, which can be difficult. In 2004 Harvard Psychologist Dan Gilbert talked about natural and relative happiness in his Ted Talk titled “The Surprising Science of Happiness”. The definition of natural happiness is to be happy because you got what you wanted, which is what people generally expect being happy as a whole to be. Relative happiness comes from being satisfied with what you did not want. The man who arguably explained it better than anyone else was Adam Smith, who said, “The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions is not only miserable in his actual situation but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor. This drives us to violate the rules, either of prudence or justice, or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our folly or by remorse from the horror of our injustice.” in his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments.

So why can everyone not be happy with what they have? The answer is simple you are told not to. Society makes you believe you have to have what you want because that is what supports the economy. If everyone had content with what they had, nobody would make any money. 

The final answer is happiness is more of a state that could alter more than a feeling. You can choose to be content with what you have, or you can waste time wondering if it would have been better. People spend their entire lives pursuing more, but when they get more, how long will it last? You can not value what you need until you value what you have.