What is most important to achieve Happiness

I chose happiness as the first topic, simply because it is what everyone is looking for. The lack of it can become the source of so much unrest and may lead to broken relations, violence, and destruction.

All that happens around us through, family, friends, organisations, corporations, and governments is ultimately the actions of individuals. I might sound naïve, but if each individual achieves real happiness, most of life’s issues can be resolved, or at least those that are around us.

From my “research” the definition of Happiness seems to be a mystery. There is no consensus between the philosophers, of today and of those of long ago. Similarly, there is no agreement between all the religions, psychologists and experts, yet it is the most sought-after state by all human beings.

The thing that I have learnt in my life, and I am sure many will attest to this, is that true happiness does not consist in sex indulgence, for it only brings victims, remorse, and the rest. On a lower level, it is not found in drink or entertainment or fine clothes or physical beauty or in any one of the thousand ways that the advertising industry keeps telling us, and millions are gullible enough to believe it.

Similarly, happiness does not also consist of academic achievements or success in industry or business. It does not consist in acquiring a reputation or becoming the idol of millions in sports or Hollywood. It does not consist in being successful in politics or achieving high authority in Church or state, even though some of those things are good in themselves.

Many people have put in their interpretation on happiness, ranging from Saint Francis of Assisi who said that for it is in giving that we receive, to Winston Churchill, we make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give, and Goldie Hawn, giving back is as good for you as it is for those you are helping, because giving gives you purpose. Martin Luther King said “Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”

Frankl’s message in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” is very enlightening. Viktor Frankl, was a Jewish psychiatrist in Vienna.

In September 1942, he, his wife and his parents were taken to a Nazi concentration camp. Three years later, the camp was liberated, but out of his family, only Frankl known as prisoner number 119104, had survived.

In nine days, he wrote about his experiences in the camps, Frankl concluded that the difference between those who had lived and those who had died came down to one thing, and that was “Meaning”.

He gives the example of two suicidal inmates. These two men were hopeless and thought that their life was no longer worth living. Frankl writes, “it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them.” For one man, it was his young child, who was then living elsewhere. For the other, a scientist, it was his books that he needed to finish.

Frankl writes: A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life.

He also wrote, “it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to ‘be happy.’ But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy.'”

I personally agree that meaning and purpose are necessary for happiness, and they need not be confined to one meaning and one purpose, but it is necessary to ensure that the most important meaning and purpose does not have a finite end.

For example, if a person’s life time work is their meaning and purpose, then what happens when that work is finished, or that person has to retire. Will it result in a loss of happiness and purpose to live? Similarly, if the attachment is the love for another, what will happen if the other dies, or is permanently separated?

I am not suggesting that these should not form part of our happiness, but rather that the most important meaning and purpose for one needs to be eternal.

If you believe in God as I do, then, it is only there that you will find eternal.

For many that is difficult because you cannot see, hear, or touch God with your senses, but if you want to, you can find Him.

My challenge for happiness every day is not to let it pass by without it having meaning and purpose. What is your challenge?

I look forward to have that conversation.