What Makes You Happy - Essay Example

?“What Makes You Happy?” Concerning the Evolution of Happiness and the Ways to Respond to It Meaningfully We hear it often from people that they wantto be happy. We have also seen surveys conducted around the world determining the happiest people on earth. And out of goodwill or by habit, we actually wish one another happiness. What are the criteria of happiness? By what standards are we said to be happy? What is the road to happiness? The criteria against which we benchmark our own or another’s happiness are normative and descriptive of our condition of being. These may be physical, social, economic, and even spiritual. By these same standards we gauge our level of attainment of happiness. Now, the road to happiness is presumably that which we reasonably have to pass – to the point that it becomes something off the beaten path. But what is this thing called happiness? Philosophers have counseled us for centuries, if not for millennia, about the nature of happiness, and how it is the singular goal of human life. Meaning to say, happiness is the life proper to man. Moreover, different ethical theories are significantly theories of happiness or rational attempts to know what truly completes the human person. Briefly, we can cite that happiness is both at the same time a state of wellbeing characterized by goals achieved and a positive attitude towards change. Describing happiness as wellbeing affirms the necessary orientation towards personal integration. It is when we see ourselves connected with others, especially with something larger than our own interests like God, country, family, etc., can we say we are happy. Personal integration therefore is all about discovering our place and role in the scheme of things within which we realize our life’s purpose. Thus, happiness is wholeness of life. But can we be assured of happiness in the light of the evolving times? Is happiness still possible at a time when most often people explicitly complain from distress and burnout? That “human anguish in modern minds is tethered to the events that would have caused fitness failure in ancestral times,” (Buss, 2000), is one observation that illustrates happiness as fundamentally an experience of wholeness in the light of environmental change. Accordingly, our concept of happiness must be adequately molded by an evolutionary perspective. Evolution is a creative process. It is the way of the universe and of everything involved in it, including us human beings. As human beings ourselves we are part of the evolving process that leads to the fulfillment of our destiny resulting in our happiness. Thus, if happiness is every human being’s goal, he must be willing to understand the evolution it has undergone. By adopting an evolutionary mindset we can appreciate and benefit from the evolution of happiness. The Darwinian model of evolution has been expanded to include not only biological species but also social, cultural, and organizational realities. Everything is undergoing important transformations to achieve its designed wholeness. Evolution teaches us a painful but an important lesson: the inevitability of change. As Charles Darwin (1958, 444) eloquently expresses it: “Whoever is led to believe that species are mutable will do good service by consciously expressing his conviction.” In other words, the sooner we accept to live by this reality of evolution, the better for us. As humans we adapt to survive, that is, to be happy. Indeed, happiness is a function of our capacity for meaningful adaptation. Our failure in this life-altering human condition causes unhappiness. However, it is the same process of evolution that equips us with built-in psychological apparatus to help us deal with unhappiness and eventually to achieve happiness. With happiness as the end of human existence, anything else like pleasure, power, and wealth becomes nothing but a condition of attaining it. In other words, in view of happiness which man seeks he inevitably engages in the satisfaction he derives from such things. What is clear here is the necessary distinction man has to make between happiness and the means he thinks can provide him with it. But in what does happiness consist? In other words, if a life of happiness is essentially rational, what are its elements? Can we identify some of these elements? At the outset, we claim that happiness is a function of strategic way of life. Happiness presupposes a wise mode of existence; it is therefore earned as it is particularly performed. As an end of human actions, happiness determines the amount of efforts one exerts to achieve it. The energy one invests in the search for happiness is proportionate to the kind of happiness one actually envisions. The question “What makes you happy?” addressed to another is theoretically valid and ethically sensible. For it is a question that deals with the knowledge of oneself in terms of knowing what one truly considers essential to one’s living well. Yes, learning to live well is the critical element of happiness. Being happy is learning to lead the life one imagines as potential source of happiness. A clear of identity is an indicator of happiness, so is a sense of responsibility. Happiness then includes the experience of going out of oneself, with the view towards reaching out to others. For, at the end of the day, as philosophers like Aristotle, the Stoics, the hedonists, the utilitarians, etc., have shown, personal happiness is concerned with ensuring that society is sound and pleasant to live in. That is to say, seeking and realizing personal successes have to be seen within the context of the good of the society as a whole. For example, Aristotle’s eudaemonistic ethics which aims at the development of human potential and that of the utilitarians’ calculus of the greatest good of the greatest number of people reveal a more mature understanding of happiness. Meaning to say, happiness is socially responsible or it is nothing at all. That should be the main element of happiness. The social orientation is what guarantees individual happiness. No one lives in a vacuum, and no one lives by and for himself. To be sure, happiness is only possible within the originating and sustaining space primordially provided for by the society. Our ancestors had taught us this, albeit not without difficulty when applied to today’s world. In the end, happiness is a social imperative more than an individual prerogative. Thus, everyone has to work out his personal happiness, in order to be able to contribute to another’s happiness. That is what is rationally proper to man that continues to take shape over evolutionary period. Paul Ricoeur’s (1965, 105) eloquence is unmatched: “The instinct for happiness, insofar as it is a feeling which anticipates its realization more than it provides it, assures me that I am directed toward the very thing that reason demands.” “What makes you happy?” This is as much as paradigmatic as hermeneutic in relation to the changing situation. REFERENCES Buss, D.(2000). The evolution of happiness. American Psychologist, 55, 15-23. Darwin, C. (1958). The origin of species. New York: The New American Library. Ricoeur, P. (1956). Fallible man: Philosophy of the will. Trans. Charles Kelbey. 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