David J.

Pollay

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May 5, 2008

We Can Be Happy; History Says It’s Up to Us

Since the beginning of time, man has been concerned with how to achieve happiness. Philosophers, theologians and, later, psychologists have all tried to provide the answers.

In the Fourth Century B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristippus told us that the key to happiness was to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. He called his approach to happiness “Hedonism,” the Greek word for pleasure. Decades later, Epicurus went even further and said it was man’s moral obligation to maximize his experience of pleasure.

Socrates took a different tact. He believed happiness is achieved through the pursuit of virtue and knowledge (aretē and epistemē in Greek). Continuing in this vein, Aristotle wrote that man can only be happy when he identifies his virtues, cultivates them and lives in accordance with them. The idea is that we should develop what is best within us, and then apply our talents and skills to the betterment of others and our world. Socrates and Aristotle’s approach to happiness is known as “Eudaimonia,” loosely translated from Greek to mean happiness.

On the other side of the world, Confucius taught us that all men have the power to transform their lives: A good life is possible for everyone, not just the privileged in society. And then like Aristotle, Mencius believed that true joy in our lives is possible when we nurture “our sprouts of virtue.” Zhangzi then shifted the focus to the importance of intuition, and away from the mind. He taught the power of the Dao, and how happiness comes from living in harmony with nature. Buddha then introduced “the way of the eightfold path.” Buddha taught that the key to a good life was found in controlling your mind – that peace and happiness could be attained through a meditative life.

Many more have spoken and written about happiness through the centuries. Marcus Aurelius said, “Remember this, that very little is needed to make a happy life.” The renaissance philosophers Erasmus and Thomas Moore believed that it was God’s desire that man be happy, as long as the means taken to achieve happiness were not superficial. Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of the mind than on the outward circumstances.” German philosopher Immanuel Kant said, “Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.”

William James, the father of modern-day psychology believed, “How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.” Psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote that we must satisfy our hierarchy of human needs before true happiness – self-actualization – is achieved. And psychologist Viktor Frankl emphasized man’s search for meaning: Our happiness is reliant on our ability to live a life full of meaning and purpose.

Throughout recorded history it is clear that man has contemplated and pursued happiness. And the great philosophers, theologians and psychologists have helped us realize that happiness is achievable for all of us.

Whenever I needed to meet a challenge or pursue a goal when I was growing up, my grandfather used to tell me to say, “I can. I will.” His guidance is relevant to all of us.

We can be happy. We will be happy. History says it’s up to us. 

© 2008 David J. Pollay. Distributed by North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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