Notes on Happiness
In life we all aim to attain happiness. From a very young age, our parents provide us with the tools in life we need in order to lead a happy and productive life later. We are sent to school, and given the moral and ethical means to help us differentiate between what is right and what is not. Happiness, we are told does not come from money or from prestige. Instead, the lesson goes, happiness comes from seeing the people around us happy. Therefore, the message says that happiness is a transformable commodity. You can pass it around and hope that others pass it to you some-time. One of the first people to articulate on happiness was the great Greek Philosopher Aristotle. This is a blog about Aristotle’s understanding of happiness, his theory on the subject and its relation to good life.
Aristotle once rightfully remarked that, “happiness belongs to the self-sufficient.” This is a sharp contrast to those who make the argument that happiness should be preceded by wealth. This argument is flawed on many fronts and we only have to read the newspapers to disprove it. Life continuously reminds us of rich and well to-do who take their own lives because of the intrinsic lack of happiness in their lives.
Aristotle divided happiness into three distinct parts
•a) Happiness that is a life of pleasure and enjoyment. What this meant was that one does not have to be rich and wealthy in order to be happy. It states that happiness comes from one enjoying the simple things in life and doing good for his fellow man. It means that by taking pleasure in helping others, one can achieve happiness. It relates to the popular epigram that “I am happy when I do good. I am sad when I don’t.” I am feel happy when I remove a rock from the ground and I feel great when show a lost person a direction. These kinds of things bring joy to me and I don’t have to be rich to be happy.
•b) Happiness is a life as free and responsible citizen. This idea means that when people are free and have basic human freedom, that they become happy and content. We see that people who live in countries where basic human liberties are denied to people are less likely to be happy and suffer to win their rights. So, according to this idea, happiness is tied to personal freedom. Being a responsible citizen also contributes to leading a healthy lifestyle. By helping our fellow men, we attain happiness. So happiness comes from doing good to our fellow men and leading a productive life.
•c) Happiness is a life as a thinker and philosopher. What this means is that happiness comes through our critical reasoning and our ability to challenge social norms for the better. This idea is tied to the previous idea because only under free and independent societies can one have the luxury to critically challenge and pursue ideas that run contrary to the conventional norms. This is particularly important because as a disciple of Plato and indirectly of Socrates, Aristotle knew that when people are denied the right to present their ideas, society can suffer and deteriorate. So, in this case, there is no question that Plato’s famous narrative The Myth of the Cave had an influence on him.
Aristotle believed that, “nothing exists in consciousness that has not first been experienced by the senses.” So, Aristotle believed that happiness is a process and that it is not inherent or achieved overnight.
Anger plays a counterproductive role in one’s life and affects one’s happiness. When some-one is angry they can’t think normally and thus they are more susceptible to committing mistakes and causing harm and danger to others. This prospect of causing harm and danger and relying on emotions instead of careful thought out critical analysis goes against the basic teachings of Aristotle. When we study history of the greatest despots the world has seen, we realize that most if not all have been angry and fuming with hate. One has just to watch a video of Hitler or Stalin to understand this point. Anger impedes critical reasoning and it is precisely why it has been discouraged by many philosophers and wise men. A society always prospers when it pursues a path of rational thought and healthy discourse, anger obstructs that basic human pursuit, with a deadly consequences.
Other than undermining the success of a society, anger also hinders a good personal life. When one is angry, they become removed from reality and become an obstruction to other’s happiness. No-man is a castle. Every-one has connections with other human beings, whether as a son, brother, father or a friend. So an angry person naturally draws others to their unhappy and angry life. Anger also leads to other problems and when it becomes a habit can lead to depression and consequently becomes an obstacle to good life.
However, some of Aristotle’s ideas can also be applied to people who do not live in a free society. One can live in communist China or North Korea and still be able to lead a happy and prosperous life. Even though, happiness depends in great part on the ability to express one’s rational thought, it also depends on how on treats his fellow man and the kindness and goodwill they exhibit to people in their community. Aristotle’s ideas argue from a platform that asserts that to be happy one has to be free and therein lies the main fallacy of this argument.
Gloria Anzaldua and Lisa Majaj are all too familiar with happiness and good life and how to achieve it. As minorities and members of ethnic groups that are portrayed negatively by the popular media, they have overcome great personal challenges and exemplified courage and hard-work. Anzaldua comes from a Hispanic background and lived her initial childhood working on a ranch, later through perseverance and hard-work, she attained knowledge and became a celebrated writer and fighter for human freedom. Her color, sexual orientation and ethnic background even though they offered many challenges to her, she has been able to convert her challenges into advantages and never allowed her background to hinder her as she struggled to leave her own mark in the American society. As I read her book Borderlands, I drew a distinct lesson of what life can be if we followed her example. She has continuously faced great personal challenges with courage and conviction and at the same time led a good life by all accounts.
Lisa Majaj is also another person who encompasses what good life is. As an Arab-American, she has faced challenges that most Americans can’t even imagine, yet she has faced obstacles with grace and courage and in studying her history we realize that she truly personifies the popular cliché of taking the stones thrown at you and turning them into milestone.
Majaj and Anzaldua would have truly led very different lives had they succumbed to society’s pressures and responded the anger and question marks thrown at them. Instead, they have never allowed those criticisms to hinder them as they charted their own footprints in our society. In their writings, one can find wisdom and what good life really is: reaching life’s little moments and helping your fellow man.
