We have various expectations of life – that it would get more exciting with every year, that we would gain more wisdom with every experience, and become one step closer to happiness with every ounce of effort we put in. In the course of our education, we developed the belief that the academic knowledge and qualifications that we would earn could help us gain access to happiness. But what is this happiness that we seek? It is difficult to set a particular definition of happiness. Utilitarianism, as formulated by philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, claim that happiness is the most important deciding factor in judging the morality of our actions. Mill’s Greatest Happiness Principle states that actions are morally right in accordance to the extent to whichtheypromote the general happiness, and immoral to the extent to which they produce pain. Therefore, we should do all we can to accumulate as much happiness as possible(for everyone), and to avoid the production of pain.
I would say that happiness is not merely an emotion, but the sum of circumstances and factors that favours a comfortable living environment. The happiness that most of us seek is not just momentary pleasures, but the general well-being of our persons over the course of our lives. This definition is contestable, particularly by philosophers. But for the sake of argument, I would assume that this general well-being is what most people would aim to attain.
How can we attain this general well-being? To achieve a satisfactory level of well-being, one can imagine the basic conditions we must have: access to food and water, sanitation, shelter, medication, clothing. The goods required for the ‘next level’ of happiness are essentially a higher quality of basic-level goods: better housing and amenities, easily accessible medical care, more fashionable clothing – basically,a higher quality of living. If we have the basic goods for well-being, our next concern would be to increase our quality of living even more. In modern capitalistic societies, there is a great emphasis on wealth accumulation and the procuring of consumerist products. Almost every person wants to have luxuries beyond comfort, and assets beyond necessity. We have been bombarded by the rhetoric that happiness means having more, without being aware of this imposed hierarchy of desires.
In reality, happiness includes more than just what we – consciously or subconsciously – think it is. Wealth and asset accumulation take up a significant portion of a society’s pursuit. But will it bring happiness? Will wealth alone be sufficient in securing general well-being for all lives in a society? It would appear that a certain level of wealth is vital to subsistence and consequently, personal well-being. However, the importance of other aspects of life such as interpersonal relationships, communitarian bonds, social capital, pursuit of justice and philosophical thought is often systematically downplayed. Campaigns that promote family life and social programs may be genuinely intended for creating healthy relationships in society, but they do not structure society to contemplate these issues deeply, nor are they indicators of a society centered on communities. These campaigns create the impression that communitarian bonds are still possible in our competitive society, when they are merely providing aesthetic cover for a wealth-centric system. Most people are kept busy with “earning a living” and struggling for survival, without genuinely contemplating about the deeper facets of society and life. But should we take a moment to think about the non-economic aspects of happiness? After all, man is the one animal that thinks too much – and perhaps using our minds to think about issues that apparently don’t matter might serve to put life into a clearer perspective. To build a more complete picture of happiness, we need to break out of the established notion of happiness that is perpetuated by the mass media and mainstream views. Modern society has lost its capacity for thoughtful critique of the status quo. German philosopher Herbert Marcuse describes this cognitive numbness as a happy consciousness – being falsely comforted by material goods and losing autonomy over our thoughts. Media and advertising moguls have painted a picture of happiness for us even before we learned how to read.
I cannot suggest a foolproof plan for discovering happiness – I can only suggest that we thoroughly examine our idea of happiness and scrutinize it. We must constantly ask ourselves: according to our current life plan, what kinds of happiness are we going to experience? Our career, our family, our activities, our religious beliefs and our hobbies – will each of these things bring a meaningful and fulfilling form of happiness for us? The common things that people would generally enjoy in life today – a career of our choice, starting a family, or participating in our favourite sport– are they truly what we desire inherently or do we only desire them because society has been telling us that these things are desirable? The message that has been instilled in us since childhood is that these “add-ons” bring fulfillment to our lives. The more we have (in terms of quantity or quality) the happier we are. The people of modern societies have no qualms with this message – opting to run the rat race in order to secure more of these “add-ons”. When we scrutinize the realness of our happiness, it appears that we do not seek brute happiness alone. We also desire to have meaning in our lives and to be part of a greater purpose. Of course, it is difficult to determine what ‘meaningful’ is. Good feelings do not necessarily equate to meaningful happiness, but are nevertheless reliable indicators of happiness. It is an instinctive reaction to work towards the material and tangible sources of happiness, regardless of whether they are genuinely inherent in us or not. Good feelings can sometimes also be found in religion because it tries to make sense of life, existence and suffering. In other cases, people develop their own secular beliefs in an attempt to justify life. These ideologies serve as our emotional and psychological anchors, rooting all our life decisions according to a set of principles which enables us to make sense of our lives. Nevertheless, regardless of which ideology we follow, we must constantly scrutinize and analyze it critically.
No one can truly answer what happiness is exactly (yet). Happiness is not measurable or tangible. But we all know what would bring us good and pleasurable feelings, and we often assume them to be genuine sources of happiness. We need to critique this assumption and ask ourselves if the happiness we thought we are striving for is really what it appears to be.