The great unabridged Oxford English Dictionary contains half a million words. Among all these, one of the most difficult to define is “happiness.” It is easy enough to find a purely verbal definition such as “a feeling of pleasure or contentment” but that is superficial. Any state of mind is hard to describe but happiness is perhaps the hardest. It is not necessarily associated with any physical state – the possession, for instance, of wealth, or power, or high position, or beauty, or outstanding skill. Indeed, often enough, the actual possession of wealth, power, position, genius, or the adulation which beauty attracts, drives happiness away and leaves behind a feeling of sated discontent, a yearning for something even more. Happiness – it is a will-o-the-wisp which as soon as you grasp at it, it disappears.
In Mary Renault’s lovely novel, The Persian Boy, she has the young Alexander the Great give the best definition I have read: “What is happiness?” Alexander asks. And he answers himself: “To have achieved one’s longing, perhaps. But also, when all one’s mind and body are stretched to breaking, when one hasn’t a thought beyond what to do the next moment – one looks back, and there it was.”
The Royal Society, Britain’s most august scientific body, once held a conference on “The Science of Well-Being” at which scientists debated the subject of what makes people happy.
At this conference there was considerable discussion of the work of Professor Martin Seligman, a psychologist at Pennsylvania University, who was probably the world’s leading figure in researching happiness. His findings revealed that there are three kinds of well-being or happiness.
First, there is “the pleasant life.” This derives from the enjoyment of sensual pleasures and the acquisition of material goods such as attending a convivial party with friends, having good sex, eating a splendid and beautifully cooked meal, watching a well-made film, getting a new car, going on a cruise and so on. Professor Seligman believes that the transitory pleasures that make up “the pleasant life” contribute very little to lasting happiness though the media and the advertising industry do their best to convince us that it contributes most of all.
Secondly, there is “the good life” which is associated with enjoying something which we have the talent for and do very well. In this regard it is vital to identify, the earlier the better, what strengths and talents we have so that we can participate in activities or make a contribution to endeavours which use those strengths and talents. Lasting satisfaction tends to grow out of being able to develop our strengths and use our talents to their full potential.
Thirdly, a relatively rare extension of “the good life,” there is “the meaningful life,” the secret of which lies in finding something you believe in completely and ardently and placing your strengths and talents at its disposal. It may be serving God or a political creed or a charitable cause or creating works of art or discovering the cure for cancer or saving the rain-forest or designing ocean liners or breeding race horses or, indeed, anything once the absolute and dedicated love of doing is matched with the God-given ability to do. Thus you can tap into the wellspring of perfect self-fulfillment which, if you are lucky, may last all of a lifetime. There are not many people who qualify for this high-intensity happiness.
I am not entirely convinced by such cut-and-dried categorizations. There will always be something indefinable about happiness. I am inclined to think that being born of and into a happy family gives a person a very important head start. I am absolutely convinced, also, that good and close relationships with family and friends leads to much more happiness than any accumulation of worldly goods. A strong faith in the truth and consolations of religion also probably eases the fear of death and the void and is maybe an important factor in staying happy.
What else? Scientists claim they have found that concentrating on small personal successes instead of agonising over big failures around you can “rewire” the brain into producing a more optimistic and therefore happier frame of mind. I can believe that.
However, let me tell Professor Seligman or any scientist that wants to know – happiness for me includes writing at least one new good poem every now and then and the return of West Indies Cricket to the top of the world class.
