DaveJays Blog

What is Happiness?

APR 26th 2005 • 0 Comments

This is a speech I wrote for my Philosophy as Conversation class. I was worried when going into this class, but I came out of it with a better understanding of a lot of philosophies on life.

What is happiness? Happiness is probably the most sought after thing in the world. Everyone wants to be happy. It's what they live for. Some people find happiness in giving to others and helping others; some find it in their morning latte at Starbucks, or they find it in intimate relationships. Others find it in drugs or alcohol. And some find it in their religion whether it be Christianity or Atheism. The question here is, are all of these forms of happiness an illusion? I believe that in most cases they are.

In all of the above examples, we're never able to find complete satisfaction in any of them. People on drugs need more drugs, people who live for sex need more sex, people who love espresso need more espresso. People who feed the homeless aren't content unless they continue to feed the homeless. So these people can never have enough. They always need more in order to maintain their present state of happiness.

It is for this reason that I say that all of these forms of happiness are simply an illusion of happiness. I think that these are really distractions from true happiness. We can only find true happiness when we are fulfilling our purpose for living. Take the brave little toaster for example; he was never truly happy until his master started using him again. He's a toaster! He's not going to be happy until he starts cooking bread for his master! That's why he was created! He was even willing to jump into the gears of a car smasher in order to save his master from being killed. My point here is that if we are truly doing what we were created to do, it doesn't matter what happens to us. It is not this way with other things. All the other forms of happiness in the world are only temporary. They do not last. They have a beginning and an end. But true happiness will last forever.

I believe that our purpose is to glorify God. The way that each of us glorifies Him may be completely different, it all depends on what the Holy Spirit directs us to do. If I give 80% of my income to the poor, that's good, but if it wasn't what God wanted me to do, it was all for nothing. But if I give 80% of my income to the poor because I felt God directing me to do so, then THAT is glorifying God. He doesn't care about the works that we do. We can't impress God with how many good deeds we perform. What's important is that we obey Him and as a result it brings the only true, everlasting form of happiness on Earth. If I stay true to the plan for my life that was custom designed specifically for me, even if I die it won't matter, because I'll have died while doing what God created me to do and thereby glorifying Him. And I'll continue to glorify Him even after I've died. I'll be with Him forever, constantly fulfilling my purpose and reason for being. Why should I waste my time and Energy trying to find fulfillment in anything else? It won't last.

So the whole concept of happiness in most of today's society is an illusion. It's not real. Yalom was right when he said that love (or happiness) crumbles upon inspection. Because if we truly look at what it is that makes us happy, we'll find that it's not real. Like a fake rolex, it's a cheap imitation of the real thing. Like Pepsi is to Coca-Cola. We'll never truly be content until we get, "The real thing".

So what can be said to disprove the idea that happiness is an illusion? Some would say, "I feel happy, it's a real feeling, it doesn't have to last forever for it to be any more real than it currently is." I can't deny that happiness feels real. When Revenge of the Sith comes out next month I'll be very happy to go see the midnight showing. But what if I were to go see it, and thought that the movie was great and that it was the best movie ever. So I go to my credit union and withdrawal all of my money from savings and then use it to see the movie 500 times. Odds are I'm probably going to be sick to death of the movie and hate it. So how can something that brought so much happiness and satisfaction earlier bring so much dissatisfaction and sick feelings later. Star Wars couldn't have been the source of that happiness if it brought out the opposite feelings later. It's like a mirage. The happiness is not really there. My eyes were playing tricks on me. Did something change about Star Wars? No nothing changed. The only thing that changed was me. So now the happiness that I thought I've found has become sickening to me and I start searching for some other source of happiness that will in turn become sickening to me and I'll continue to roam the dessert looking for mirages that aren't there. I'll be looking for happiness till I die, never truly finding it at all. All that I've done is waste my time searching for something to preoccupy my time and make me "feel" better. It is for this reason that I say that happiness is an illusion or a mirage. The question remains, will I be content with the happiness that I've created for myself? Do I want to continue walking towards a mirage that I'll never reach. Or should I pursue the real McCoy?

So what else can be said to disprove glorifying God as the true form of happiness? Some would say that I am deceiving myself into believing that God has any purpose at all for my life, that glorifying God forever in heaven is simply a story that somebody came up with in an effort to make me feel better about myself. There really isn't a God at all. Instead of trying to disprove God and His purpose for my life. What could be done to prove that it's all True. Some people demand a miraculous sign before they believe. But even if God came down to Earth and died and came back to life three days later. That would not be convincing enough. In the end, we eventually have to give up trying to figure it out for ourselves and simply trust that God knows what He's doing. Asking someone to prove God's existence is like asking a scientist to explain what light is made of.

posted in: God |