7 Happiness Theories I Reject

Every Wednesday is "Tip Day," or "List Day."

As audacious as it may seem to contradict venerable figures such as John Stuart Mill, Flaubert, or Sartre, I disagree with some of their views about the nature of happiness.

Flaubert: "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless." I argue that this is Happiness Myth No. 1: Happy people are annoying and stupid.

Vauvenargues: "There are men who are happy without knowing it." Heartily disagree. My Fourth Splendid Truth is "I'm not happy unless I think I'm happy." Or as Eugene Delacroix wrote, "He was like a man owning a piece of ground in which, unknown to himself, a treasure lay buried. You would not call such a man rich, neither would I call happy the man who is so without realizing it."

Eric Hoffer: "The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness."

Sartre: "Hell is other people." (Actually, hell is other people, but heaven is other people, too.)

Willa Cather: "One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them..."

Alexander Smith: "We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once." My Eighth Splendid Truth is "Now is now"; it means many things, but among other things, it reminds you to remember the happiness that is here and now.

John Stuart Mill: "Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so." (I reject this statement, but I would agree "Ask yourself whether you are happy on a scale from one to five, and you cease to be so." For me, at least, trying to make those kinds of tricky judgments diminishes happiness -- I find it very difficult to answer a question like that -- while the simple question, "Am I happy?" contributes to happiness.)

How about you? Do you agree or disagree with these theories?

* I found a lot of great material on Greatist.

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Comments

[Kristin Talbott]

09:42 AM on 12/19/2011

I have to agree with Hoffer, Smith and Mill, all of whom, it seems to me, are essentially saying the same thing - that once you observe your own happiness, it disappears.

Why should this be so? Because happiness is, of course, a very desirable state. When we consciously make note of our happiness, we see something of value. And for the vast majority of us, that triggers our ego to kick into gear and start trying to protect/possess it. We make note of the circumstances that we believe have sparked our happiness - a raise or promotion, the company of someone special to us, whatever the case may be - and before you know it we're no longer happy and content, we're stressed and anxious because we're no longer enjoying these things in the moment, we're busy plotting how to make sure we don't lose them and preoccupied with an ever-more vigilant search for signs we ARE losing them.

To be lasting, happiness has to be something that you carry with you regardless of what's going on around you; the ideal state, I think, is one where you don't have to keep checking to see if you're happy any more than one has to check to see if their eyes are the same color as they were the day before.

[french queen13]

02:11 PM on 12/19/2011

Your last paragraph sums it up, Kristen. If one's happiness is based on something constant, and especially not something dependent on material wealth, success, or whatever, it has a much better chance of not just lasting, but settling in, as it were. And it is possible to observe that sort of happiness without losing it (which I find preferable, purely for myself I mean, than possibly taking it for granted).

Cheers,
Louise

[sunnylo1]

09:22 PM on 12/17/2011

I would say a deep contentment with where one finds oneself in this life, from moment to moment, is happiness itself. No fear, just awareness. Our sense of well being arises from this. Our sense of happiness. That being said, it comes and goes. It can be cultivated however, by the way we live.

I remember a Van Morrison line that went something like this, "It's in the doing that we finally find, a way to live our lives and obtain some peace of mind." This is my experience.

[french queen13]

03:04 AM on 12/17/2011

Alexander Smith's statement is pretty dismal (and inaccurate, as far as I'm concerned). I'm happy now as I never was in, say, childhood, or (shudder) my teens. Things have improved out of all recognition in the last few years. Am I free of worry about the future? Far from it, but I have happiness that isn't reliant on my material situation.

I agree with your modification of Sartre's statement - both (earthly) heaven and hell are other people.

[Pratitya]

10:12 PM on 12/15/2011

When am I happy?

What constitutes my happiness?

Okay, since I cannot answer these questions then what constitutes my unhappiness?

Is it only transitory things?

When I am happy can I identify that I am indeed happy?

Why have I become the dog chasing its own tail in pursuing these question?

Yet I perceive an underlying need to get to the bottom of these questions?

I am happy when I connect to something greater than my finite existence.
I then feel magnanimity towards others.
There is a deep inner peace and centeredness.

Alas, it doesn't last and I am thrown back into this turmoil call life where these questions reemerge as doubts. Have I ever been really and truly happy?
And so it goes.

Still, I find the imperative to seek out answers..

[french queen13]

06:27 PM on 12/17/2011

Dogs have fun chasing their tails, don't they? :)