“Death creates an economy that makes life precious. One of the ways of naming that preciousness is friendship.”
Stanley Hauerwas

Some Remarks on the Nature of Happiness

D. A. Hagner

The problem of a definition

 Happiness is not easy to define. That sometimes philosophical dog named Snoopy could do no better than to define happiness as 'a piece of fudge caught on the first bounce.'  Happiness is simple for dogs. It is not so simple for human beings. Indeed, it is what differentiates us from animals−human transcendence, the imago dei, and our fallen state−that makes happiness such a complicated and difficult matter for us.

What is happiness?  One of my favorite dictionaries, The American Heritage Dictionary, gives as its first definition of happiness the following: 'characterized by luck or good fortune; prosperous,' and its second as 'having or demonstrating pleasure or satisfaction; gratified.'  This is practically identical with the first two definitions of the monumental Oxford English Dictionary.    
  ‘human transcendence and our fallen state makes happiness such a complicated and difficult matter for us'
 
 

The trouble with these definitions, of course, is that they reflect a very shallow notion of happiness, essentially identical with what I call 'Hollywood happiness.' Hollywood has sold us a bill of goods on what happiness is, pushing especially wealth, luxury, power, beauty, youth, sexual gratification, and a highly exotic notion of romantic love. At the center of it all seems to be pleasure. Our modern western world, taking its cues from Hollywood, is shamelessly hedonistic. Unfortunately, I suppose that a very high percentage of humanity believes that happiness is what Hollywood defines as happiness. It is particularly important to explode the myth that these things lead to happiness and to show that there are plenty of people with these things who are unhappy and plenty of people without them who are happy. Some recent psychological studies have provided us with a scientific basis to conclude something we suspected all along, namely that money cannot buy happiness.

The Greek philosophers are pretty good on the subject. Socrates said that people miss their happiness because they do not know what it is, mistaking for good, things that are not good, things such as unlimited wealth and power. The Stoic philosophers believed that a virtuous person has all he or she needs for happiness, namely such things as wisdom, courage, justice and moderation. It’s hard to imagine more of a contrast with the values underlying Hollywood happiness. Going against the idea of fate or luck as determinative of happiness, the Stoics argued that happiness and unhappiness are not dependent on birth, upbringing, status or any of the other contingencies of life.

Whatever it is, human beings crave for happiness. Who of us upon being asked 'Are you happy?' would be able to give an absolute yes or no?  More likely, the answer would be 'Depends on what you mean by ‘happy,’ and it would probably be a mixture of 'yes and no.'  Very mystifying is the fact that some who should be happy say they are not, while those who should not be happy, say that they are. There is, in short, an awful lot of confusion about what happiness is. We need a more adequate definition of happiness.

The complexities of happiness

Dr. David Myers, a psychologist who has studied happiness, defines it as 'subjective well-being' or 'emotional well-being.' He further identifies this state as 'a pervasive sense that life is good,' 'an ongoing perception that this time of one’s life, or even life as a whole, is fulfilling, meaningful, and pleasant' (Pursuit of Happiness, 23). He also refers to 'feelings of happiness' and 'satisfaction with life.'

The traits, or distinguishing features of a happy person, are also revealing: self esteem, personal control, optimism and extraversion.  Dr. Myers also speaks of the importance of close relationships and of health. People who have these traits tend to be happier than those who lack them.

Dr. Myers is interested in the scientific study of who is happy and why−the “demography” of happiness, if you will.  The subject is not easy. Nor can measuring happiness be an easy matter. There are different kinds of happiness.  One could be happy in some ways and unhappy in other ways at the same time. One could be happy in the morning and unhappy in the afternoon. A smiling face can  camouflage a deep unhappiness; and unhappy face can conceal a deep happiness.
  A smiling face can camouflage a deep unhappiness
 
 

How many people are really happy? One of my favorite psychology writers, Arch Hart, expresses surprise at the conclusion of one psychologist that 20% of the population is happy.  Hart believes that the proportion is much lower. Dr. Myers cites national surveys, where no less than one third of Americans describe themselves as very happy (40% in some European countries), and the majority describe themselves as 'pretty happy.'  Less than 10% report themselves as more dissatisfied with life than satisfied with life (Life is better than the alternative, anyway!). I think I side with Hart in being surprised at these statistics.

I am tempted to ask the reader if she or he is happy. Probably most readers would regard the question as too simple. Happy in what sense? By what definition? If I’d known about the question ahead of time I’d have eaten a better breakfast. The only reasonable answer would have to be framed in a complicated balance of yeses and nos. Besides, perhaps I don’t want to tell anyone I’m not happy.
    
'If you feel happy, you are happy−that’s all we mean by the term,' according to happiness researcher, Jonathan Freedman (cited by Myers in Pursuit of Happiness, 27). It is comforting to know that at least the therapist is not going to respond with the alarming analysis: 'But you aren’t really happy, you only think you are,' or 'You aren’t really unhappy, you only think you are.' Nevertheless does not this approach rest too exclusively on feelings? And are feelings alone a sure measure of true happiness? Do feelings not fluctuate depending on many variables, often relatively unimportant ones?

It does seem clear that attitudes are very important to the experience of happiness. But are they in themselves sufficient to produce happiness? Attitudes are after all insubstantial. They are only ways of thinking about something. If we are unhappy, can we fool ourselves into thinking we are happy? Is Norman Vincent Peale right when he says that 'You can think your way to failure and unhappiness, but you can also think your way to success and happiness'? Undoubtedly there is considerable truth here. But what if hard reality simply provides too concrete an obstacle to positive thinking? Another advocate of mind power is Robert Schuler who, in The Be-Happy Attitudes, writes: 'The good news is . . .the bad news can be turned into good news . . . when you change your attitude!' Apart from the questionable exegesis of the beautitudes (more about that in a moment), there may be more that cries out for change than merely our attitudes!  Truly bad news cannot be turned around just by thinking differently about matters, Christian Science notwithstanding.

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