The Pursuit of Happiness

April 14, 2006

One of the most famous phrases from the United States Declaration of Independence reads:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

At the time, this was a very radical statement. Even today, it has a certain feel of power to it. For one, there are about half a dozen debatable ideas in this statement alone. And while I could dedicate an entire blog to the examination of the Declaration of Independence, I’m just interested in the last four words of this statement: “the Pursuit of Happiness”.

You can surmise from its position alongside life and liberty that the Founding Fathers thought happiness was pretty important. In fact, you could further speculate that they may have been suggesting that the pursuit of happiness, which can only be achieved when one has life and liberty, is the ultimate purpose for our being on this planet called Earth. Perhaps I’m stretching a bit there… but think about it. Maybe I’m not. Western politics and philosophy aside, you can no doubt see the importance of happiness (or at least its pursuit) in the minds of the Founding Fathers.

Little has changed since those historic words were put to paper. The pursuit of happiness remains a cornerstone of the human experience. You can backtrack almost any venture or behavior, no matter how mundane, back to happiness in some way. Careers… relationships… hobbies… science… and even the basics of personal hygiene have a finger in providing some degree of happiness to our lives. You may not think about being happy when you brush your teeth. But think about how unhappy you would be if your teeth rotted out. Or if the unpleasant smell of BO followed you around. A lot of people seek out lucrative careers and money-making schemes to acquire material wealth… which in turn they hope will make them happy.

But what exactly does that mean? What is happiness? As I soon found out after embarking on this emotional exploration, the definition is almost as elusive as the feeling itself.


According to The New Oxford American Dictionary, “happy” is defined:

1Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment; (happy about) having a sense of confidence in or satisfaction with (a person, arrangement, or situation); ( happy with) satisfied with the quality or standard of; [with infinitive ] willing to do something; (of an event or situation) characterized by happiness; [ attrib. ] used in greetings; [ attrib. ] fortunate and convenient
2 [in combination ] informal inclined to use a specified thing excessively or at random

Ok. But what does that mean? Pleasure? Satisfaction? Willingness? Quality? Fortunate? Does one have to define all of these words in addition? One of the reasons I’ve had such a hard time churning this post out is due to the complexity of a thorough explanation of what exactly happiness is. There are a lot of competing ideas on just what makes a person happy. And there are just as many on what happiness actually is. To make things more simple (and this post more concise), I’m going to run with two of the ideas that seem to encompass many of the other, more specific explanations.

The Pleasure Principle

According to the school of psychoanalysis, which was initially developed by Sigmund Freud, the basic, primal nature of all human beings is that of experience of pleasure. Now before you lambast me going into Freudian territory, I’ll ask you to set aside your preconceived notions of the Freud we all know. If you get past the sex and the sometimes esoteric explanations and terminology that most texts perpetuate, you get the good Freud. The brilliant Freud. Forget sleeping with your parents and your oral fixations. Let’s focus on one of his theories that is pretty darn insightful.

Freud divided the human mind into three main divisions: the id (pleasure), the ego (reality), and superego (morality). Think of them less as physical divisions and more of divisions of consciousness. In his theory, Freud states that humans are born possessing only the id. The ego and superego develop later as we grow and must confront reality and society. The id is ruled by what Freud called the pleasure principle. Simply put, the pleasure principle can be defined as the seeking of pleasure and the avoiding of pain. An id-dominated organism seeks only pleasure, by whatever means necessary, and avoids real or imagined pain. Babies and small children operate under this principle. They cry when they need something pleasurable (feeding, changing, shifting out of an uncomfortable position, sleep, etc). Children do all sorts of things that they think will be pleasurable or fun without any consideration of the consequences or possible dangers.

Once a person is confronted with reality, they develop an ego to keep their id-driven pleasure-seeking drives in check with society. Later on, a moral element sets up inside the individual and further checks the id and ego. I can explain it a little more clearly with an example. Pretend you see a dollar laying on the street. According to psychoanalysis, the “conversation” in your head goes something like this:

ID: I want that dollar
EGO: Can I take that dollar without anyone noticing? The street is busy… the owner might see me take it.
SUPEREGO: I shouldn’t take that dollar. It’s someone else’s. I should find the owner of that dollar.

Keeping all of this in mind, should we define happiness as the satisfaction of our id? Even after our reality and morality centers set themselves up, we still have the primal, instinctual urges of our id. We still seek pleasure and avoid pain… within the context of society and its expectations. Each of us develops differently so it stands to reason that each of us would develop different ideas of what is pleasurable. This could explain why things that make me happy might not make you happy. Think about the things that make you happy. Do any of them not also bring pleasure? Are the two words interchangeable?

Happiness is a State of Mind

On the opposite side of the spectrum from the pleasure principle you will find the idea that happiness is completely a state of mind. And I’ll admit that this one is a little more difficult to really put a finger on. What exactly is a state of mind? A physiological mix of neurotransmitters and firing impulses? A level of consciousness? A thought process? All of the above?

I think this theory fills in a major gap in the above-mentioned pleasure principle. What about the people who have a less that pleasurable existence? What about the people confronted with extreme adversity? What about the people who lose all things pleasurable in their lives? Yet through all of it, they remain basically happy people. Do they find pleasure in adversity and strife? Or is there more to happiness than just a satisfaction of pleasurable drives?

I had the pleasure of getting to know a woman who, to me at least, stands as the poster-child of having a happy state of mind. She lost a child a few months ago. She lost her husband a few months before that. She’s in the process of losing her home. And her health is rapidly deteriorating. Obviously, she’s going through a lot right now. So much, in fact, that she decided to seek professional help in dealing with her problems. She was quite obviously going through the grieving process over her many losses. She cried on numerous occasions. The difference between this woman and some of the others I’ve got to know is that she was never beyond at least touching happiness. She would laugh and smile at others while tears streamed down her face. She was pleasant with everyone that she met. And when you talked to her about her current situation, she would not deny that it had taken an emotional toll on her. But she would do so at the same time she told you about all of the things she still had. She was able to deal with her life problems by remaining positive and by finding positives in the face of her adversity.

Maybe she was faking? But I’m not so sure that was the case. I think it’s possible for a person’s state of mind to not only affect their disposition, but also to counteract many of the stressors that would normally overwhelm a lot of us. You know this person. Always happy. Always in a good mood. Takes the negative with a grain of salt and deals with it while remaining a generally happy person. Now there’s a difference in the person who’s always annoyingly chipper and bubbly. I think that’s less a state of mind and more a front to hide what’s really going on in their lives. But what about the others? The ones that experience the full range of human emotion without ever losing touch with their happy base. What is it about this state of mind that makes it so powerful? How does one achieve such a state?

Since this is an examination of happiness in general, I’ll have to leave the answer to that final question for another post. And as I already stated, explaining a state of mind is difficult enough on its own. The best I could really come up with are the examples and questions above. Hopefully you can get an idea of what I’m going for from that racing blur of thought and question.

Conclusion

These are but two attempted explanations for happiness. Which is it? Pleasure seeking? A state of mind? Maybe a combination of both? Whatever the ultimate definition of happiness may be, I think it can be argued that the pursuit of happiness does in fact lie at the core of what makes most people tick. The majority of the other emotional experiences we deal with can be rooted back to either the achieving or the deprivation of some kind of happiness. Be it a state of mind or simply the acquisition of pleasure, happiness has many faces, many names, and many causes. Psychology hasn’t figured it out. Science hasn’t figured it out. Philosophy? Nope. Maybe religion? Don’t think so. Whatever it is, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is simply undefinable by any means available to me.

Perhaps that’s just it. Happiness is an undefinable experience unique to each individual. Pleasurable, yes… psychological, yes… but there has to be more. Maybe the best we can do is discover what makes us happy and run with that.

I’ve got my life. I’ve got my liberty. I think it’s time I started pursuing that elusive happiness…

Part 3 of The Emotional Roller Coaster: Taking the Track Apart. Please visit the Series page for a complete index of all related posts.

Posted in Emotions, Human Nature, Noteworthy, Series

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