In 1998, Martin Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the former president of the American Psychological Association, said, “Social science now finds itself in almost total darkness about the qualities that make life most worth living.”
Since then, numerous studies have been conducted to on the topic of happiness, looking at positivity, pleasure, neuroscience and faith, and how they connect to meaning in life. While progress has been made in this field, the topic of happiness still remains ambiguous.
Happiness should be normal, but sometimes it’s necessary to embrace other emotions such as sadness, sorrow and pain.
Happiness should be like an airliner cruising in the sky — flight is the main state of the aircraft. Occasionally there is turbulence that disrupts it, but the aircraft recovers and goes on with its journey. There are necessary times when the aircraft must land, takeoff and be repaired, but airliners are designed specifically to fly, it’s their natural state.
In the same way, humans are designed to be happy as a natural state, sometimes the turbulence of life hits hard and we are temporarily distraught. And sometimes the seriousness of pain, sorrow and sadness are to be embraced — this is when the aircraft is being repaired. It’s not meant to be in this state forever, but it is necessary.
These serious emotions can be scary, and often people want to run from them. But when they are acknowledged and embraced there is a chance for healing and resolve to mend the wounds. The crying may last through a night, but there is a hope to be found when joy comes with the morning. There is something significant about the morning and the newness it brings.
There is a saying “those who plant in tears shall harvest with shouts of joy.” Don’t let your sorrows be wasted, but instead let them be turned into an opportunity for character to be developed and joy to emerge.
Psychologist Dr. Kim Gaines Eckert said life is not about avoiding pain and maximizing pleasure. Rather, suffering is essential to our humanity. Instead of alleviating pain with a feel-good experience, we can grow in and through suffering.
“We don’t merely want to be happy; we want our lives to matter. We want our pain to mean something,” Eckert said.
We need to be honest with ourselves and each other in order for happiness to really flourish in our lives. Happiness is selfless.
Perhaps it’s by changing our focus to the spiritual where we find a form of happiness that can transcend suffering and even remain in the midst of sorrow.
Ravi Shankar, also known as “Sri Sri,” a spiritual leader, said the key to happiness is to not focus on one’s personal desires or material gains, but instead to dedicate one’s life to a larger purpose.
“But when we have this unshakable faith that there is a Supreme Power with me at all times which loves me dearly… and will never leave me; then the strength we get from such a faith makes us glow with happiness, and our face lights up with a smile that never fades. This is why Spirituality is very essential in life,” Shankar said.
Interestingly, C.S. Lewis, a novelist and scholar, also emphasized the benefit of not focusing on oneself.
“Give up yourself and you will find your real self.… Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours.… But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in,” Lewis said.
Lewis pointed to the importance of looking beyond oneself to find everything one needs, along with happiness — which in his case was found in Jesus, who he believed is the source of all happiness and joy.
“Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection…. You want to be warm, you must stand near a fire: if you want to be wet, you must get in the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them…. They are a great fountain of energy spurting up out the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not you will remain dry,” Lewis said.
Maybe there is no clear answer to what happiness is and where it comes from, but it is something that can be found. Life is relatively short, so we might as well allow our days to be filled with happiness, while embracing the days of sorrow, as we begin the journey of finding the source of happiness itself.
Andrew Brand can be reached at [email protected]