The Nature of Happiness

By Dr. H. D. Lambeth

When we look back and perceive that we were happier "way back when," is it true? No…those were not necessarily happier times, just different things about which to be happy. Happiness…a thing in the making, the doing. A tradesman making an object—say, a violin—certainly delights in the finished product, but there’s also a kind of fulfillment. But there is the rub. The word "happiness" is a noun—meaning fulfillment, delight—which is regularly thought of as the end product of pursuing and accomplishing a goal.

But the point is well taken that the pursuit itself—doing, discovering, designing, creating—the "verbalness" in the process, is itself happiness. As Longfellow said in his poem A Psalm of Life, Let us now be up and doing…still achieving, still pursuing."

Happiness may be one word that has no precise synonym but rather must be defined by a cluster of feelings or moods—joy, exultation, ambition. Often happiness is a retrospective attitude of nostalgic reminiscence in the doing, remembrance of the doing. Happiness can be found in the lives of tradesmen, businessmen, a housewife taking care of her family...a farmer tending his crops…a writer developing a story or putting together a turn of phrase or poetry to express himself…people in general who have accomplished something. But they surely find happiness in the process itself, even though they may also be rewarded tangibly as well. Surely, there is ego involved in satisfaction and accomplishment, but note the past tense character of the "verbalness" wrapped up in the nouns "fulfillment" and "delight." It is the achieving that inspires the happiness. Success comes from the venturing.

It often occurs that happiness is the result of an accidental sequence of developments, such as when we are forced to take a detour and we experience a surprise that develops in to a cluster of memories that inspire happiness in the recall—in the memory that lasts a lifetime. Often happiness come from a spontaneous or impulsive act, such as when a person is shopping in a store and suddenly sees something and impulsively purchases it, creating happiness in its use.

A writer of note once penned that "things tyrannize a man" and that "a man is rich in the things that he can do without." But one of the things we cannot do without is happiness. We say, "Ah, sweet mystery of life" when we revel in those moments in life that we catalog as periods of happiness.

So the noun we try to define as "happiness" is a product that is an activity, rather than a plateau. We climb a mountain, and from that vantage point in life we realize that any step we take is downhill, in a move away from that peak. The peak that a pursuit of happiness took us to. So at an advanced age, we will look about from the mountain top for a new pursuit of happiness. Using the reasoning, the experience, the learning that was a happy time. To put together the happiness of the downhill trek.

Very likely it will be a continuing lifetime in service to others—being a steward of the accumulated resources that happiness brought. The teaching of the experience, the learning and so forth, the smelling of the roses along the way, the raising of a litter of kittens, or rabbits, the writing of a poem at eventide, the exploring at the seashore, the cuddling of your newborn child in your arms. The end result is happiness, but so is the pursuit. There are many paths to achievement, each of which is constructed through moments of happiness.

So now, pursue, pursue—pursue achievables, with the resulting smile on your face, radiating all the while the not-so-illusionary thing called happiness.