What Is Happiness?

How do you define happiness?

I think happiness is a level of contentment that exists within a person so that, basically, on any given day, they walk around feeling like "Everything's OK in my world. The world's an OK place." It really is that old adage about "I'm OK and you're OK." So, "Other people, the world, and me. All is well in my life." Then, occasionally, when you're generally happy, you have little bursts of excitement or enthusiasm that just feel like moments of joy. I think it's that base line of contentment with those moments of joy that actually define happiness.

What are the essential ingredients of happiness?

Well interestingly, depending on where you are on the hierarchy of needs, if you're worried about survival and your surviving, you have a way to be happy with that. If you're more comfortable with your physical needs and your "in-belonging" and love and self esteem and you feel like those things are being met, you'll be happy there. So it depends on where you are in terms of taking a step beyond where ever you began and growing beyond the generation previously, to see how far you believe you need to go in order to reach the goal that you established, and again, meet your own expectations and you will feel happy as of result of that. I have a story for you, it was something I actually read on the internet one time and it was a story about a woman who was entering a nursing home who was completely blind, and as she entered the nursing home the aid that was taking her to her room, showed her her room and was sort of walking around helping her - say, you know "this is where the bed is" and "this is where the nightstand is" and the woman kept talking about how beautiful it was, and the aid asked her, "well, you know, I don't want to be disrespectful but, why do you think it's beautiful? I mean, frankly you can't really see.", and she said "I've already decided it was going to be beautiful in my mind and that's all that matters." And I think there's truth there because it really isn't about what is, its about what you believe there is, and theres a line I heard once, I think it's a Don Henley song which said that he wished not to have what he wanted but to want what he had, and I think thats it right there, is that you recongize that what you have is enough, that you establish a position of gratitude about what you have and that you look at that as being plenty and you look at yourself as being enough, and all of those things work synergistically to create joy and happiness within.

Is happiness important?

I think it's important to each individual that they allow themselves to choose happiness. So, to that extent, I think happiness is important, and I think it's really important that they understand they have the option to do that. In terms of my job, that's what I would really want to teach people all day long, is to know that they can be happy if they allow themselves to be, and if they create it from within. And because they can, my job is very fulfilling. Because I see people choose to do that every day. Not perfectly, certainly, I would never espouse perfection as even a goal. It's not a worthwhile goal because no one's perfect. But to continue to strive, and feel like you're a work in progress, and let yourself be enough, let that be enough, creates happiness, and that's achievement.

Is happiness relative?

I don't think that you can compare your own personal level of happiness with someone else's because we are like snowflakes and we are so different. It is impossible to compare. Well I am happier than you are on some level. It is just too individualized. I think it can be relative in terms of your own life and you can see periods in your own life where you had times when you were happier than others. Certainly situational factors can enter into play: Lifestyle changes over decades or processes that one goes through as they grow older, as they grow up, as they get healthier, as they become ill. All those factors are relevant. So it is relative internally but again, outside or externally, I don't know that you can compare and contrast.

Is culture a factor in how we view happiness?

I think that different cultures have different expectations about what they believe is the optimum level of happiness. And some cultures really teach survival because of where that nation is or where that culture is in those moments and in that time. So if they allow a person to really believe that happiness is within their grasp that culture has an opportunity to sort of instill that belief across the board. Some cultures really prize self sacrifice, some cultures prize altruism, some belief systems or religious theories. Everybody's philosophies is going to determine what they feel is their optimum level of happiness and what opportunity they have to actually attain it. So there are cultural factors that probably weigh in and as you independently try to figure out whether or not you are happy and what chance you have to increase your level of happiness, those cultural factors are going to play a part. The messages that you received from your family, from your environment, from your philosophy or religious belief system or cultural belief system are all going to be relevant. And those things are things that you need to explore, understand, analyze, take apart, and modify. Because if you want to change how you feel within and those things are factors that are creating the feelings that you actually have especially if there you cognitive frame work. You have to change the frame work in order for the picture to be different.

What's the difference between happiness and pleasure?

Pleasure is a moment, happiness is a lifetime. Pleasure is something you can strive to achieve in an action or an activity, and often people confuse pleasure with happiness so they become pleasure-seeking or pleasure-driven. What's interesting is that because they're searching for something outside of themselves, it actually winds up almost having the opposite result. The more you're driven to try and find it, the less you're actually slowing down enough to find it within.