-- TWikiGuest - 19 May 2024

Our discussion today got me thinking (in what I hope is a useful, rather than in an Arnold-channeling-Thomas kind of way) about the definition of happiness. Eben mentioned that he doesn’t value happiness (at least in the central way that a student had suggested), but that living a life of meaning is important to him. (Please forgive me if I’ve understood anyone’s thoughts incorrectly.) For me, meaning is an important component of happiness.

I think that how one values happiness depends, in part, on how one defines the term. Happiness, to me, means being fulfilled, satisfied with both where my life is and where it’s going. It doesn’t mean feeling overwhelming comfort, or positive emotion - it means feeling like my life has a worthy purpose, and that I’m meeting the goals necessary to achieve that purpose (which I guess in turn generates positive emotion). I am incredibly unhappy when I feel like an unproductive member of my family, my study group, or my class, and I feel happy (with myself as a person and with the life that I’m building) when I’m able to engage with my environment in a useful way as I work towards an end that I value. This is true no matter how little time I have left for myself, after my work and familial obligations are met, so long as those obligations are ones that I value and I have, in fact, met them. (Happiness, of course, also entails social happiness, which for me is in part also predicated upon purpose, but I’m not going to go further with that here.)

That said, purpose and meaning can be defined broadly and narrowly. I can feel that my life has meaning because I’m taking care of my family’s financial needs (one day, far from now), or I can feel that life is meaningful because the specific work in which I’m engaging is helping to achieve a specific aim that I value. For me, purpose encompasses both the broad and the narrow, and it is, in part, the combination of these goals that makes the career choice ahead so challenging.

So I value happiness, in part because an important part of happiness, for me, is living a meaningful life. I’m wondering how everyone else feels about happiness – how do you define it, and is “having it” it something that matters to you?

-- MelissaMitgang - 24 Feb 2009

You seem to be positing that leading a meaningful life will itself lead you to happiness, and therefore I think that when you ask what happiness means to everyone else, you’re also asking what everyone thinks is meaningful. Personally, I find it difficult to answer both of those questions.

In my mind, it boils down to short-term and long-term tradeoffs for happiness and meaningful experiences. I think in the long-term, having meaning in my life will give me great satisfaction and make me happy. Short-term, however, I don’t think that the two will be as closely linked. For example, this summer I am very much looking forward to working on domestic violence litigation. I expect that when I reflect upon it at the end of the summer, it will have been a deeply meaningful experience which will affect the way I see the world. However, I think there’s a good chance that my experiences on some days will be very depressing. While I won’t be happy those days, I think I will be happy to have had the experience at the end of the summer.

I recognize that I haven’t answered the questions of what happiness and meaning are to me, but I’m not sure that I have clear answers. I know things that I like and dislike, and could say that I’ll be happy when I’m maximizing the likes and minimizing the dislikes. But some balance of both is probably appropriate to enjoy life. Maybe that’s where meaning come in – happiness might be surrounding myself with the things I like, and doing the things I don’t like when they contribute to something I will appreciate at some future point.

-- CarolineElkin - 24 Feb 2009