On the Pursuit of Happiness

Is the pursuit of happiness the ultimate goal in an individual’s life? Should we be constantly striving towards achieving happiness for ourselves and those around us?  These questions are very important from a theoretical standpoint on happiness. At first glance, the answers to these questions seem obvious. After all, why would someone not want to pursue happiness and be as happy as possible? However, it is not as simple as it seems. To fully explain the pursuit of happiness, one needs to consider the following questions: how often can we expect to be happy, are happiness and sadness mutually exclusive, and how much control do we have over our happiness.  The subsequent argument based on these questions will portray that happiness should not be our ultimate goal in life.

First, we must consider how often we can expect to be happy. Is expecting to be happy all the time feasible? Can we even expect to be happy the majority of the time? Or must we settle for being happy just some of the time? To begin, nobody can adequately argue that we can be happy all of the time in all possible situations. There are always going to be outside influences and events that will diminish or completely remove all of one’s happiness and there is nothing that the individual (or collective group) can do to stop it from happening (without using various undesirable methods).  For example, one cannot prevent the eventual death of those one cares about. Such an event is out of the realm of control for humans and therefore we cannot expect to feel happy all the time in all possible situations. In reference to achieving happiness in all situations but also attaining this happiness through undesirable means, we can consider the ideas put forth by Aldous Huxley in ‘A Brave New World’. In his novel, Huxley creates a drug called ‘soma’ that all the citizens take daily. This drug makes the people feel happy all the time. This is a prime example of achieving happiness through undesirable methods. It is true that the people may be happy all the time (or at least most of the time), but in order to achieve this, the people’s freedom of choice is removed. This example is not adequate in pursuing and achieving happiness and neither are other similar examples. Moreover, it is also possible to experience sad emotions despite an individual not wanting to feel such emotions. That is, we as humans have a lack of control over our emotions to a certain extent (this point will receive further consideration below).  As a result, anyone who claims that happiness can be achieved at all times and in all situations is either simply choosing to be ignorant towards sadness, is using undesirable methods to achieve constant happiness, or is just completely delusional.

Before we can continue on, we must note that there is no specific definition of happiness since individuals all experience happiness in different ways and at varying degrees. That is, the exact same event could elicit completely different responses from different people. For example, the birth of a child may elicit feelings of happiness for an individual who has been trying to have a child for a long time. That exact same birth may bring sadness to someone else in that it may produce feelings of greed and disappointment based on the fact that he/she also wants a child but has been unable to up to this point. This aspect of happiness, however, does not change the overall argument though as one’s specific experience of happiness is not important when considering the overall pursuit of happiness. Moreover, it is not important for this discussion to get into the morality surrounding happiness.

With that settled, we can move on to the idea that happiness and sadness are mutually exclusive. Many people may disagree with this idea and therefore we require some clarification. Many people may argue that happiness and sadness exist on the same spectrum but just at opposite ends. That is, when one feels happy one is simply leaning more towards the happiness side of the spectrum, and when one is sad one is leaning more towards the sad side of the spectrum. It follows that when individuals are around the middle of the spectrum they will feel just fine or okay. However, this notion of happiness and sadness does not adequately express the feelings and, therefore, is problematic in considering the overall pursuit of happiness. In truth, happiness cannot exist on its own completely void of all sadness (and vice versa). Even in one’s happiest moment, there are still various events that can and are causing sadness in an individual. However, the individual may be focusing more on the happiness than the sadness, but this does not mean that the other feelings are completely negated. Being completely void of sadness (or happiness) in every capacity is, therefore, impossible. We can conceive of a situation in which one experiences both happiness and sadness from the exact same event but to varying degrees. For example, a student who got accepted into a post-secondary institution that requires her to move away from home may experience both happiness and sadness from the same event. She may experience happiness for being accepted into the institution of her choice, but she may also experience sadness in having to leave home and move away from her family. Hence, it may be better practice to think that happiness and sadness can be theoretically quantified in some manner within one’s brain. For example, when one experiences a very happy inducing event we can attempt to quantify this happiness by saying that this specific event provided 10 units of happiness. Therefore, it follows that the individual may also be holding onto sadness from some previous event – let’s say that they still possess 2 units of sadness from yesterday. Since the new, happy event outnumbers the previous sad event, the individual experiences the feeling of happiness despite also possessing some units of sadness at the exact same time.

As a result, we can argue that happiness and sadness do not coexist on the same spectrum. That is, there is no spectrum where complete happiness is on one side and complete sadness is on the other and you simply move up and down the range depending on various events and experiences. Instead, happiness and sadness exist independently from each other and yet still compete against each other to be the overall emotion one feels. To further the argument that happiness and sadness are mutually exclusive we must consider the passing of time especially when attempting to quantify happiness and sadness. No matter how happy or sad an event is for an individual, the happiness and sadness will fade as time passes. I will refer to this fading as the increasing of ‘unhappiness’ and ‘unsadness’ respectively. The degree of fading is obviously different for each individual just as the increasing of happiness and sadness is for each individual even when experiencing the exact same event. To clarify, an individual can think of a past event in her life that brought her a lot of happiness at the time. The memory of that event still can bring her happiness in the future but that happiness will never equal the exact amount of happiness that was experienced at the time of the original event. Time has a way of muting or fading the happiness. It may not completely dissipate into nothingness, but the feeling of happiness does slowly fade. Therefore, we can again see in the increasing of unhappiness and unsadness that these two opposing feelings must be exclusive from each other since they also deteriorate at different degrees.

Finally, we must consider the amount of control we have over our emotions, specifically our happiness and sadness. The simple fact is that we cannot always control what makes us happy or sad. Certain events will occur despite our best efforts to avoid them. Furthermore, it is possible for one to experience feelings of happiness (or sadness) from an event in which the individual knows that she should not be having such feelings. That is, rationality does not always influence our emotions and many times individuals feel emotions despite their rational minds telling them that they should not be feeling such emotions. For example, it is possible for someone to experience feelings of happiness when seeing an ex-lover even though the person knows that being with that ex-lover leads to very sad and horrible feelings. Rationally, they know that they should not be with the person, but emotionally it is extremely difficult if not impossible to stop themselves from feeling somewhat happy when thinking about their ex. It is important to note here that control over what we choose to think about does not constitute control over our emotions. We can choose to focus on certain events and ignore others events. However, this does not adequately deal with the overall problems of pursuing happiness. Rationality cannot train someone to stop feeling happy when a cute, little puppy licks their nose if they have always experienced happiness from such an event, and the same goes for sadness as well. Furthermore, it is the case that sometimes people will have to consider sad events for any random purpose (such as a decision needs to be made for example). It is obvious that completely ignoring all possible sad events is not an adequate way to achieve happiness. Nor is it practical as we established above because happiness and sadness coexist, and therefore one cannot completely avoid or get rid of either one. Such an endeavour is doomed from the start.

In conclusion, the pursuit of happiness is a faulty enterprise for the following reasons: it is impossible to experience happiness all the time (and therefore avoid sadness all the time), happiness and sadness are not mutually exclusive and therefore we must experience both almost at all times, and we lack the overall control of our emotions to strive for constant happiness. The pursuit of happiness alone is inadequate because it leads one to simply ignore sadness and that is not the best way to deal with sadness. It sets you up for failure in the long run. Our best pursuit should be that of acceptance of happiness and sadness in an equal and rational manner. We cannot avoid sadness forever and nor is that healthy. We cannot experience happiness forever either as that is just ignorance and/or delusion. Hence, an adequate acceptance of both is required in order to be truly happy in life.