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How precisely does one pursue happiness? We may pursue wealth, pursue fame, pursue gratification of one form or another. But the fiction of pursuing happiness has become a collective obsession that consumes our lives, either by goading us into chasing impossible dreams or by tarnishing the quality of our existence with unwarranted regrets.
Before we set off in pursuit of anything, we ought to know what it is and how to get it. Like many other words and expressions, we toss about the word "happiness" without really knowing what we mean. The definition seems obvious, but the inconvenient truth is that we really have no idea what we're talking about.
Nowhere is our confusion about happiness more poignantly reflected than in this famous poem by Edward Arlington Robinson:
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean-favored and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good Morning!" and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich, yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine — we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked and waited for the light,
And went without the meat and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet in his head.
Poor Richard Cory had everything, but not enough to make him happy. In fact, his failure to attain happiness by attaining everything that should make one happy may have been the cause of his fatal depression. He may be only a literary character, but his story has plenty of real-world parallels.
So we return to our question? What is happiness, and how does one get it?
Every year, the World Values Survey (WVS) issues a report ranking the nations of the world according to their level of happiness. Repeatedly, the people of Denmark have taken first place. Other Scandinavian countries score consistently high as well, with Puerto Rico and Colombia recently coming in second and third.
How does the WVS determine people's happiness? It asks them. As reported in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, "Researchers measured happiness by simply asking people how happy they were, and how satisfied they were with their lives as a whole."
As we will see, the equation of happiness and satisfaction may have been the researchers' first mistake. Their failure to define happiness may have been their second. Their conclusions about the source of happiness were almost undeniably their third.
And what were those conclusions? That happiness derives from increased personal freedom, prosperity, and social tolerance. To have money and the opportunity to use it as one wants without being judged by others is the source of true happiness — at least, that is what the WSV would have us believe.
Anton Kaiser read the results for 2008 and wondered if something was not rotten in the state of Denmark. The retired career army officer did some research of his own and reported his findings in the Dakota Voice: "Denmark, Puerto Rico, and Colombia are highly literate democracies (98%, 94%, and 93% literacy, respectively), whose people speak primarily one language (Danish, Spanish, and Spanish), and who are overwhelmingly Christian (Lutheran 90%, Catholic 85%, and Catholic 85%)."
Mr. Kaiser wondered why these statistics had not led researchers to conclude that education, common culture, and religious commitment might be the relevant criteria for producing happiness. Granted, one could reasonably expect people who live in a society (like Denmark's) that includes legalized prostitution and drug use to describe themselves as "happy." Considering that the WVS Association has its headquarters in neighboring Sweden — which has similarly "relaxed" social mores — one suspects that a certain cultural bias may have guided their conclusions.
A young man who had grown up suffering the abuse and embarrassment of a drunkard for a father was constantly on the lookout for ways to reform his old man.
On one occasion when his father was sober, the young man spotted a drunk wallowing in his own filth by the roadside. The sot was in such a stupor that he seemed oblivious to his own indignation.
Seizing upon the opportunity, the young man grabbed his father by the arm and pointed at the pitiful derelict. "Look!" he cried. "Do you see that drunk in the road?"
His father looked where his son was pointing and, when he beheld the man covered in mud and muck, he appeared thunderstruck. Slowly, he advanced toward the drunken man, then leaned down until their faces were only a few inches apart.
As the young man watched his father whisper a few words to the drunk he felt a surge of success and relief. Surely, this time he had gotten through; never had he seen anything make such an impression on his father before.
When his father finally came back with a glazed expression on his face, the son asked eagerly, "What did you say to him, Pop?"
The father turned to his son and said, "I asked him what he was drinking and where I could find some."
Without a common language, whether literal or figurative, individuals feel cut off from one another and therefore see communal standards only as impediments to their own desires and aspirations. Conversely, in a community of people with shared values and cultural reference points, everyone feels increasingly connected to everyone else. In such a society, people are less inclined to feel that they are working at cross purposes, that the force of social inertia is against them, that they are condemned to struggle in vain in pursuit of goals that others are continually trying to sabotage.
When people feel they are part of a national movement, they begin to see themselves as players on the same team, working together to reach the same goalposts. That sense of unified purpose lies at the heart of genuine happiness…
The fallacy of the "pursuit of happiness," therefore, derives from the mistaken assumption that happiness is itself a goal. Happiness is a byproduct, the natural emotional response that arises when we have a sense of purpose and the awareness that we are working toward the fulfillment of that purpose to the best of our ability. When we believe a goal is attainable, and all the more so when others around us are working cooperatively in pursuit of the same goal, our feeling of happiness increases exponentially.
Indeed, as Christopher Plummer's character says to his student Hector, "We should concern ourselves not so much with the pursuit of happiness but rather with the happiness of pursuit."
Back in the middle 1990s, the Atlanta Constitution printed a story about a middle-aged man who had won a $4 million dollar lottery — an exceptional amount for the time. The winner had been working a double shift as a garbage collector.
When asked what he intended to do after winning so much money, the man replied, "I'm going to quit one of my shifts."
"Only one?" asked the incredulous reporter.
"A man has to have work," replied the new millionaire.
So are people in Denmark really happy? No doubt many of them are. Those who feel themselves an integral part of their society, connected to their neighbors and countrymen through a common culture and religion, a high level of education, and the resources available from a high standard of living — they most likely lead lives that give them a sense of purpose and meaning, which are the underpinnings of authentic happiness.
Of those who spend their days immersed in the sensual pleasures of an open society, it is hardly surprising that they describe themselves as happy; in truth, they are merely distracted from having to contemplate the pointlessness of their existence.
Ironically, it's all too common that people spend their lives pursuing an ideal that brings them only disappointment when they ultimately realize their dream. How many people go to pieces upon reaching the retirement they have looked forward to for decades? How many couples find their marriages strained to the breaking point once the children leave home and they find themselves with nothing in common? How many people who experience unexpected financial windfalls see their lives unravel when the need to earn a living no longer gives structure to their days?
Conversely, how many people living modestly still find joy in every day, taking pleasure in their work, their families, and their community? Chances are you don't have to look far to find a friend or neighbor with neither fame nor fortune who is genuinely happy with his portion.
Consequently, he is the one who is rich beyond measure.
Excerpt from Proverbial Beauty: Secrets for Success and Happiness from the Wisdom of the Ages. Ordering info below.
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Rabbi Yonason Goldson, a talmudic scholar and former hitchhiker, circumnavigator, and newspaper columnist, lives with his wife in St. Louis, Missouri, where he teaches, writes, and lectures. His new book Proverbial Beauty: Secrets for Success and Happiness from the Wisdom of the Ages is available on Amazon.
