By Mr. Maverick
Happiness. A word so personal, so private – yet so common and unifying. A word so complex, encompassing a range of feelings and emotions, and inviting an even wider variety of interpretations and manifestations. It is, perhaps, the most sought-after experience by every conscious human being.
“But wait,” you may think, “is it a feeling? Or is it a state of being?”
I, in turn, will add some depth and pose the deeper, more intriguing question: Is it happiness that we truly long for?
We are now approaching uncharted philosophical waters; let us sail together on this brief inquiry.
Etymology is always a safe starting point for puzzling philosophical questions. Can we define happiness? It’s a baffling word, but of course we can. Notwithstanding its infinite interpretations, all dictionaries – or at least the majority of them – define happiness as “the feeling of being happy”. Unsatisfactory? Probably. Concise? Yes. Vague? Definitely. Cambridge, Collins, and all the other dictionaries settle one issue, however: happiness is a feeling; not a state.
Unless we intentionally impair our limbic system – our brain’s emotional hub – we are all endowed with the ability to experience feelings and emotions. You most certainly did feel an uplifting burst of joy, a burst of happiness if you want, either yesterday, or the day before that, or some time in the recent past.
A few days after I nailed that job interview last year, I remember taking a walk by the park the across from my house – Air-Pods in, mind adrift, oblivious to my surroundings. Suddenly, just when Angus Young was about to launch into the Thunderstruck solo, the music stopped. My phone started ringing. Annoyed, I picked it up. It was the HR Department. The employer on the other end told me that the position was mine. I instantly felt a rush of dopamine seeping through me, a burst of joy, the flutter in the stomach, the urge to scream and shout and let it all out. Ah! Relief washed over me; a surge of vindication. I ran back home to tell my mother. Her question was inevitable: “Are you happy you got the job?” My answer? Of course I was. Isn’t it obvious?
Am I still happy a year after? Happy doesn’t serve precision; it’s not the most accurate adjective here. I’m content, sure; grateful even. The feeling of happiness, however, is static, not permanent. The word burst doesn’t precede the word happiness by accident. Like every other feeling, happiness is ephemeral – it appears for a moment, or two, and then drowns in the emotional medley of everyday life.
Aristotle believed that virtues oscillate between two extremes – deficiency and excess. His ideal was the golden mean: the desirable middle path that secures eudaimonia – a state of long-term welfare; a flourishing life of fulfillment and authentic self-realization. Between vanity and humility, one should aim for pride; between apathy and rage, one should seek good temper. And the list goes on.
Can we apply this framework to emotion? Cautiously, let’s extend Aristotle’s idea to the realm of feelings. Which are the extremes in our case? What lies between the feeling of euphoric happiness on one hand, and deep unhappiness on the other?
Serenity – the inner calmness. A state not defined by highs and lows, but by balance and resilience.
“Why?” you’re probably thinking. Because life is a marathon, not a sprint. Pursuing serenity or a balanced inner life, is something feasible to begin with, and most of all sustainable; waiting, on the other hand, for random bursts of happiness like the previously mentioned phone call, and basing our welfare on pure luck is unsustainable. Life wears little or no makeup. There is no Magical Problem Vacuum, no Island of Happiness, no Eternal Contentment; problems and inconstancy seem to pop out of nowhere, sailing at us right out of the empty sky. Can we wait for fortuitous moments of happiness? No, I’m afraid. Remember, we are engaging in a spiritual exercise, so there’s no general rule of thumb here; only suggestions.
I believe that serenity is the ideal goal – resisting being blown about like a feather by moments of joy or sorrow, and maintaining permanent inner peace in the long run. That’s what we should truly long for. This doesn’t entail that happiness and serenity are incompatible; on the contrary. They are wound together like hair in a braid. It is happiness, however, that works in favor of the higher state of long-term serenity. The previous phone call was a moment of happiness, which paved the way toward the attainment of a job, that now allows me to be financially self-sufficient, and because of this turn of events I have stopped thinking for more than a year now where I’m headed professionally. I am no longer anxious about things like expenses or the fear of being left behind; I feel more at ease and consciously grateful for this development. I worked very hard for it, but it isn’t that burst of happiness a year ago that makes the difference now. It’s the tranquility that came with it through time, which has contributed to my long-term eudaimonia.
Happiness, then, isn’t the final destination in and of itself; it’s merely a powerful tonic not to be ignored. True fulfillment lies not in chasing bursts of joy but in cultivating a steady serenity – a life that remains calm amidst good fortune or adversity.
Don’t get me wrong. Moments of happiness matter. But over time, it is the tranquility they help build that contributes to our deeper, lasting well-being—our eudaimonia.
Maybe that is what we should truly pursue.
