What is True Happiness?

Happiness is a large and important topic.

What Makes Us Humans Happy?

What is the key to the good life?

What makes life worth living?

Perhaps these are among the greatest and most important questions that exist?

Questions like this have been central to philosophy for thousands of years, and certainly long before that as well. In fact, so many people have thought and written about this that it can be a bit overwhelming for many of us. It is a start to see what wise people who have lived before us have written about this.

It helps to look at research within positive psychology. This can give us hooks to hang our own experiences on. A starting point for exploring our own paths. A map we can use on our own journey.

We must only be aware that the map is poorly detailed. It may even be completely wrong. The reason is that every individual has their own unique map. We have to fill in the details ourselves. For it is undeniably true that it helps little to read without truly understanding. To go from knowledge to competence, we must do. We must fail. We must learn for ourselves.

I have tried to immerse myself in some of what has been written about this. And it is extensive. It is complex.

There are infinitely many arguments, details, and nuances one can dig into. I definitely do not have the answer.

However, I believe it is useful and important to talk about this. Perhaps it is some of the most important things that exist?

In this article, I will not try to give a map. But perhaps I can convey a useful tool that allows you to distinguish between land and sea. So many varieties of both land and sea exist.

But let’s start there. Like other models of reality, this one will also not be correct. But it can still be useful.

Happiness 1 - Hedonic Well-Being

According to Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, our brains use two main systems to shape thoughts. System 1 is responsible for fast, automatic, unconscious, emotional thoughts.

What is 2+2? Reading a text. Finding out which of two objects is larger. Happiness 1 can be viewed in the same way. A happiness that arises automatically based on System 1. It is feelings that emerge in the moment. It is a fleeting state that can appear quickly and disappear quickly. These are emotions that arise as a result of a biological mechanism.

Hedonic well-being can manifest in the form of:

• The joy of eating chocolate
• The pleasure of a sexual experience
• Receiving positive attention from others
• The enjoyment of a three-course gourmet meal
• The feeling of being in love
• Winning on scratch cards
• Receiving Facebook likes
• Taking drugs or stimulants
• Seeing your favorite football team score a goal

These can create good feelings. They bring us joy in the moment. Feelings like this can help us feel subjective well-being. If we have good access to delicious food, technological gadgets, money, and a little substance, it’s easy to believe we have a good life. It can be so, from a subjective perspective.

The problem is that this is not enough. It leaves an emptiness. A feeling that there should be more.

The danger is that these feelings often come with a cost. And they disappear quickly.

If this were all we needed, a number of questions arise. Why is there no correlation between money and happiness once you reach a certain sum? Why can people with challenging living conditions often be much happier than those who have access to far more sources of subjective well-being? Why aren’t lottery winners happy after winning a prize? Why hasn’t all technological development in recent years created a lasting increase in happiness?

We need something more. Subjective well-being is part of the picture, but to feel satisfied, we need a more complete form of happiness. A happiness that lasts longer. That is greater than the moments.

A pleasure and lasting satisfaction with life as a whole. Beyond transient moments. We also need Happiness 2.

Happiness 2 - Eudaimonic Well-Being

The word eudaimonia is Greek and can be translated as "a good soul". This is what is missing to achieve holistic happiness. Other words we can use to avoid the association with the word happiness are "flourishing" or satisfaction. It is about functioning well.

Eudaimonic well-being can come in the form of:

• Working towards meaningful goals
• The feeling that you contribute something of value to others
• Efforts made for the joy of others
• Self-development
• Learning something new
• Utilizing your unique strengths

To become raw is to flourish. To flourish is to become the rawest version of yourself.

To learn to enjoy the moments while also working to flourish. To utilize your potential. To become all you can be. To be of use to the world.

The Challenges

At first glance, this may seem overly simplistic. Can we not just design our days so that we get a little bit of Happiness 1 and a little bit of Happiness 2—and voila, we have created a happy and deeply satisfying life? Unfortunately, it is probably not that simple. There will be several challenges along the way. Enormous challenges.

Here are the three challenges that I consider the biggest on the path to more Happiness 2:

1. You Will Encounter Pain

The first challenge is that we will encounter suffering in our lives. Suffering that we are not responsible for or have control over. In Buddhism, this is so central that it is the first of their four noble truths; Life is painful. We will experience emotions like fear, sadness, loss, and grief. If we do not handle these in a good way, negative feelings can manifest and become part of everyday life. This is dangerous. In its worst form, this can create serious mental disorders. But it is dangerous even in smaller amounts. The reason is that it steals happiness from us. We cannot experience either Happiness 1 or Happiness 2 when we have negative feelings.

Suffering and negative emotions steal bandwidth from our brain. For every moment we experience such feelings, we miss a chance to experience good feelings.

The tool that has given me the key to reducing this pain and the negative feelings I’ve learned from Stoicism. The Stoics' idea of turning adversity into a positive challenge has been a game changer for me and many I know. Viewing adversity as a source of positive challenge. An opportunity to act virtuously. To love everything that happens. To understand what we can and cannot control.

1. You Must Put in Effort

Achieving Happiness 2 requires effort. Lisa Straume, Ph.D. in positive psychology, calls Happiness 2 the effortful happiness. To experience this form of happiness, we must strive. It requires hard work. It requires challenging your comfort zone. It requires confronting your fears head-on. It is about battling the dragons you will encounter on your heroic journey. It is about making the most important choice of your life.

I believe the key to this challenge is twofold;

• Find Meaning in What We Do
  The first thing we can do is to tie our work to something larger than ourselves. To view work as meaningful, and something that contributes value to others. This makes us feel that our work is more worthwhile. It will be a significant source of Happiness 2.

• Do Useful Things We Enjoy
  When we do something we enjoy doing, for its own sake, we create Happiness 1. I believe we all have useful things we enjoy. Activities that can be a source of both Happiness 1 and Happiness 2. It can be any form of physical activity. It can be creative activities. It can be interaction with others. If we find such activities, and perhaps adapt them a bit, we may discover that they are beneficial. Perhaps because we become more productive ourselves. Perhaps because we give joy to others. Perhaps by creating some form of art that others find joy in. We can discover flow activities that have value for both ourselves and others.

• We Think It Is Either/Or

Many think of Happiness 1 and Happiness 2 as a dichotomy. As if you cannot have one without sacrificing the other. If we throw a wild party with all the accompanying pleasures, we place Happiness 1 before Happiness 2. We prioritize indulgence. We choose the biggest burger.

If instead we prioritize finishing a school assignment that same evening, and feel that we are sacrificing something important to us, we put Happiness 2 in the driver's seat. We prioritize effort. We choose the healthy, tasteless burger.

So how can we maximize both Happiness 1 and Happiness 2? I have two suggestions:

1. The Golden Mean

By following Aristotle’s advice to pursue the golden mean, we can achieve both Happiness 1 and 2.

We can be brave without being cowardly or reckless. We can be moderate without gluttony or being an ascetic. We can be ambitious without being lazy or greedy.

We can regularly challenge our comfort zone while understanding that some challenges require more training before they can be faced. We can live a healthy and active lifestyle while still enjoying good food now and then. We can achieve fantastic results at work while also having a good family life. We can read self-development books and still enjoy a Netflix series now and again. We can enjoy a beer with friends over Teams once in a while without drinking alcohol several days a week.

By following the golden mean, we appreciate indulgences even more when we allow ourselves to enjoy them. We become more sensitive to the feelings of Happiness 1 they give us.

1. Find Effortful Activities We Enjoy

Is it true that everything that is effortful is a chore? I do not believe it needs to be that way. I believe we all have things we like to do that are productive and have value for others. It can be handicrafts, art, writing, physical activity, or teaching others.

By engaging in effortful and productive endeavors that we also enjoy, we can have our cake and eat it too. We can look forward to work every day. We can love Mondays.

We can choose a burger that is both healthy and tasty.

We can become effort enjoyers.

But remember, to enjoy these activities, we must master them. And before mastery comes effort. It does not come without effort.

Conclusion

I hope the concept of Happiness 1 and Happiness 2 can be useful for you. That you see a way forward on how to fill in the details on your own map. That you have something you wish to test out to create a little more happiness in your own life.

For me, this is exciting. It feels a bit like a game where you try, fail, and learn.

Exploring your own potential.

A game where the reward can be a slightly rawer life.

But above all, a game that is fun to play.

Sources of Inspiration

• Aristotle
• Marcus Aurelius
• Seneca
• Abraham Maslow
• Martin Seligman
• Richard Ryan & Edward Deci
• Edward Diener
• Daniel Kahneman
• Tal Ben-Shahar
• Scott Barry Kaufmann
• Joar Vittersø
• Handbook of Eudaimonic Well-Being
• Happiness is Not Just Being Content
• We Must Take Happiness More Seriously
• Jakob Sverre Løvstad, The Existentialism of Happiness
• Lisa Straume
• Doctor of Positivity: — Well-Being Is Not Enough. You Need a Bit of Effortful Happiness Too
• Job Satisfaction is Effortful Happiness
• happiness eudaimonia hedonism effort enjoyment effort enjoyer
• Happiness