Dear Friends,
It seems to me that to find the means to true happiness we have to rectify the term happiness. What is it to actually be happy? Some say happiness consists of material wealth but many who have great material wealth are on Prozac. Some argue those that have great power are happy. But we know this not to be true. No matter the power someone has it is never enough. Especially the more power over others an individual has the more unhappy they are. Others claim great physical ability is the path to happiness. But many if not most top athletes are on steroids to enhance their physical prowess and are simply running a treadmill.
It may simply be that some of us are programmed, by our epigenetic/genetics, to be happy or to be unhappy. Or it may be that our childhood is paramount. But surely there are some means to happiness even with the misfortune of being preprogrammed or raised to be unhappy.
Happiness is not a thing. It cannot be held or touched. But it can be felt. A better approximation is that it is more of an intrinsic state of being rather than a feeling. A way of reacting.
Happiness must be something intrinsic. To be otherwise (extrinsic) lets open the door to the problem of poor old Job. (Who, even in his great misfortune, thanked god for a spec of moldy bread). So if happiness is intrinsic it should run across (extrinsic) groups. We see that it does. There are wealthy people who can be classified as happy and some that are not happy. Some athletes are happy and some are not. An unknown number of powerful people are happy and some are unhappy. But most importantly we see that some very poor people are happy while some are not. So some people in all these groups are happy and some are unhappy.
Being an intrinsic attribute we can say that happiness must involve some level of contentment with our lot in life. This was a tenet of Confucius. That people be content in their position. But many people are happy who have a great deal of drive. They are content now but seek glory later. So contentment cannot be the only sub definition of happiness. There must be more. Contentment in one’s lot being one of several.
What are the other attributes of those that are happy? Happy people react to outside stimulus much differently than unhappy people. If a generally happy person meets another’s eye and the other frowns the generally happy person, won’t take the frown personally, and won’t think about it again. But an unhappy person will most assuredly take the frown as a personal insult. Regardless if the frown was an insult or not, clearly the better reaction (for the benefit of the reactor), is to forget the incident. But to hold on to the insult, perceived or not does the holder a disservice, it makes them unhappy. So another attribute of happiness is the ability to forget a minor insult. Happy people don’t hold on to things that disserve them. When a generally happy person meets with misfortune he or she doesn’t hold onto the misfortune long. They release it and move on. They know to hold onto that which does us a disservice leads to unhappiness… Inevitably.
Another attribute of happy people is that they are kind to others. They know that to be kind to others does us a service in that, our self esteem is raised, our karma is elevated, our ability to help others is also enhanced. Every time we chose to help another it is more likely that we will do so again. As we sow the seeds of kindness we must not seek to reap. Else the kindness we bestow comes with strings and becomes a mere capitalistic exercise. Kindness must be done for no reason but for itself. It is an intrinsic good. A duty that builds us far more than it helps someone else.
So happiness is an intrinsic way of feeling about the world, requires foundational contentment, contains within it a way of reacting to outside stimulus, (that doesn’t hurt us more than the actual misfortune), and has a basic kindness to it. I am sure that there are other more deep and profound attributes of happiness that I have left out in my muddled thinking, but, I believe that these are the fundamental attributes of happiness. Ones that we can all achieve if we want, endeavor, and persevere to.
