Think Happy!

This question could hardly be any more important. Almost any time I mention the topic of happiness to people, I encounter two extremes. There are those people who seem overcome by their own ego and are happy to tread on everyone in their way to make more money in the hope of finding more happiness. And then there are those who almost seem willing to be trodden on, because they view seeking happiness as the height of selfishness.

I passionately disagree with both extremes – and I consider them both detrimental to the pursuit of happiness. Instead, I am committed to what I like to ambiguously call Loving Happiness. In short, this is the belief that it is not seeking our own happiness that is selfish; it is seeking our own private happiness at the expense of others that is so. However, a true hedonism – an ethical pursuit of happiness – loves to see happiness spread and recognises the need to take responsibility for that. Ethical hedonists recognise that happiness begins at home.

Ironically, those who are determined not to seek happiness – out of an apparent higher regard for those in need around them – are likely to spread sadness and depression to those they are trying to help. What’s loving about that?

Chris Edgar writes about this, reflecting an old belief which I can unfortunately relate to:

Eventually, I even started believing unhappiness actually made me a good person.  The less happy I was, after all, the more I must be placing others’ needs and desires above my own, and the more morally upstanding I must be.

Can anyone else relate to? I spent many a year in a religiously induced self-righteousness that almost revelled in melancholy. I was miserable because I was too busy helping others to worry about my own happiness. The thing is, my committment to my own unhappiness – as a gauge of my own goodness – was about as self-centred and deluded as it is possible to be. I’ve already quoted Pascal on this, but he bears repeating:

“All men seek happiness without exception. They all aim at this goal however different the means they use to attain it.”

It’s obvious now, but I wasn’t shunning happiness. I was just going after it half-heartedly. I had chosen to seek my happiness in misery. In the words of Garbage, I was only happy when it rained!

Chris also moved beyond this, eventually learning that:

…Because others sense and respond to my happiness, I understood, one of the best ways to serve others is to be happy.  And I don’t mean faking happiness, as some do when they smile and claim to be happy but are fearful and resentful on the inside.  Consciously or otherwise, people can sense whether the way you’re behaving is consistent with how you’re really feeling.  I mean actually improving the quality of your emotional life, by doing things that give you satisfaction.

And indeed I found that, when I approached my life in a peaceful and centered state, others seemed more peaceful and welcoming as well.  Strangers would say hello to me, where before they would quickly look away.  My friends and family started contacting me more often, and my connections with them felt stronger and deeper than before.  I could create more happiness in the world, it seemed, simply by being around others in a happy state. I didn’t have to tell people I was feeling good, or even smile, to produce these effects—they could experience my “happiness energy” for themselves.

I now look back on my previous shunning of happiness – in favour of a selfless (but miserable!) focus on the needs of others – with some embarrassment. What I couldn’t see at the time now seems blindlingly obvious: if you want to make other people happy, you need to know what that feels like! When I would feed the hungry, it was to preserve a life – but to what end? Ultimately, did I just want to feed someone so that they could live another day, to enable them to keep begging for the rest of their life? Of course not! I always held onto the hope that they could Live – that they could find a way out of their current circumstances, develop as people and flourish in life. That they could, ultimately, be happy.

I wanted to pass onto other people, as of ultimate importance, something that I myself was completely lacking. If life is worth living, if flourishing is worth aiming for, if happiness is really worth pursuing, then why the bleep wasn’t I doing it?! What did I really have to offer to the hungry and homeless that I was reaching out to, if I couldn’t demonstrate that it was worthwhile fighting to live another day because happiness was worth it?

I’ll let Chris have the last word:

If you believe seeking out happiness in your life would make you “selfish,” consider the possibility that being happy actually makes others happy—and that making yourself unhappy through a life of martyrdom actually hurts others.  If you want to serve others, attending to your own happiness isn’t a “luxury”—it’s a necessity.

Strong words, but, O, so true. Thanks, Chris!

Read the whole piece here.