Happiness Part 1

Happiness is a popular topic these days. We are all seeking happiness. There are books, talk show hosts, and clever calendars instructing us on how to be happy. There is a happiness industry being built around us. Sometimes it seems that if we don't feel happy we are slackers who haven't followed the advice that is out there for the taking.

The wish to feel happy is obviously not something new that popped up in the last few years along with the growth of the "happiness-industrial complex." Philosophers have written about being happy for centuries . The propaganda is new and it bombards us with simple, quick, or cute techniques for being happy.

Happiness is an experience we have that is more than momentary. It lingers and envelopes us. A gimmick won't help to have the experience. Psychologist Eric Fromm had some wise and easily understood insights about happiness in the 1940s. He discussed two paths to pleasurable experiences which could help to achieve a state of happiness. I'll describe one of his paths in this post. A second route will be the subject of a future post.

"Gratification does not depend very much on a specific activity; a man may find as much gratification in a good game of tennis as in success in business; what matters is that there is some difficulty (emphasis added) in the task he has set out to accomplish and that he has achieved a satisfactory result."

Fromm understood that being happy was the end result of making worthwhile effort and even struggling with a task, challenge, or activity that you find valuable. From this perspective, happiness is recognized as a state that comes about by taking action you find important or pleasing; but not simple or easy. Keep in mind this does not describe taking action that someone else in your life thinks should be valuable or pleasing to you, or good for you.

Fromm saw that we all need to be responsible for achieving happiness by exerting some effort. Today when our days and weeks are packed with things that must be crossed off never ending To Do lists we exert a great deal of effort and expend energy to the point of exhaustion. We need to consider if any of the actions we take are truly valuable or pleasing to us. If we want to experience the type of pleasure or happiness that Fromm called gratification we need to make time for fully throwing ourselves into those activities that we enjoy; those hobbies, pastimes, family activities or even work tasks that we value on our own terms. Experiencing this type of happiness as individuals will improve our experiences of ourselves as friends, spouses, parents, coworkers and human beings.

Quote is from Ethan Fromm's 1947 book, Man For Himself: An inquiry into the psychology of ethics (Location 2500 in the Kindle edition)