What is happiness and how to gain happiness?

 

Happiness is absolutely necessary for humans. Is it not  what everyone craves? Even Aristotle? Then, why are we so confused about what happiness is and how to gain happiness?  So, here is my personal attempt to explain what is happiness and how to gain happiness?

 

Let's start with where this word comes from. An etymological approach is an excellent way to reach an answer; it offers deep roots of how we think and live.

 

The word happy relates to happen- yes, when good events happen, we are all hunky-dory! But, when not so good events happen, we are unhappy! This doesn't tell us much, but it is too early to give up!

 

Ask yourself a question? In order for things to happen, what is required? You may come up with many choices, I may agree with all of your choices, yet they're not satisfactory unless you come up with LIFE!  Anyone must live, in order for anything to happen! Problem is that life belongs to God, not to humans. We have  temporary lives, our destination is death, and that is why we are unhappy finally. Death is the greatest fear of all men! That is why throughout human history we are always looking for eternal life! So forever happen - forever happiness. Unhappy comes from lacks, deficit, absence, loss, poverty, reduction, shortage, insufficiency, deprivation, death, and no control.

 

Happiness is not about keeping a positive attitude during difficult situations, nor is it a matter of ability to change your feelings. Happiness is all about having a life (being) and possessing fullness of life through activities (being).

 

Look at the spanish word "felicidad"- its root is fertile which means bearing offspring abundantly. Happiness is always related to the concept of life.

 

Korean word for happiness is ??, Chinese is ??, meaning lucky for blessing and life enrichment. Remember you can not buy happiness. Many say, "If I win the lottery, I will be happy." Fulfillment of physical needs cannot grant happiness, human needs never end there. Why are so many famed and rich people killing themselves? Because, there are more needs than just material abundancy.

 

Problems in this world, are always natural disasters, disease, aging, war, suffering, oppression, and depravity, because of lack of resources and greediness. So where can we find happiness?  Where is peace?

 

Only in God! Because life belongs to God, nowhere else, and he is the Creator of all the universe. Okay, this is a spiritual realm. There is a significant potential for argument here. I am not interested to offend anybody's own beliefs. Keep it anyway you want it that is fine by me. However, we all agree that humans consist of three realms: body, mind (soul), spirit. (An article on the difference between soul and spirit will be posted soon.) To continue this article, I will make a connection between body and mind realms, which is a matter of congruency within philosophy, psychology, and science. Therefore, not to offend anyone!

 

When people arrive in this world, they are totally dependent. Infants are not even able to roll over their body, they need nourishment and care for about 2-3 months, then finally can roll over. Witnessing this moment as a parent is just marvelous. But the journey of anyone's life doesn't end at giving joy to the parents but growing up to be one's self. (This time they give pain back to our parents) Thus, there are a few basic needs we can agree on:

1. Becoming own person to function as an individual - "Autonomy" (Please refer to post "Principle of life #1")
2. Find answer for "Meaning of life" Please refer to post
3. Forming the "Value system" to "How should we then live?" Refer to Dr. Francis Schaeffer's TV series and book
4. What profession will suit me? - Role to play on other pole of "Principle of life #1"

 

Life means granted two things,

1. Physical and mental energies - Concept of "Ki" from Eastern - will be posted soon
2. Time

Physical part of human life is on time belt, being is never stationary, it moves to future until physical death. Without any choice, "I am" to "I become". Question is, "What and who do I want to become?" We can not hold on to the time. Now life is destine to do with two granted resources (energies and time) into activities. In other words, I must actualized in my life with two great resources. That is what it means, I become. Now we can connect activities with happenings together. There is insight of happiness!

 

Victor Frankl who survival from Auschwitz concentration camp wrote in his book "Man's search for meaning"

"What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you. Not only our experience, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Have been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind."

 

Next point is what are the needs and wants of life? It determines goals of life. (Please refer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs). If we are not having a higher goal in mind, psychology research proves that they focus on their energies toward lower goals, such as money, sex, drug, gamble, and many other additions. Isn't this issue one of the ways to explain problem of modern society. Isn't modern people's goal of life is to make money? Shouldn't it be higher than that? Aren't we lacking the higher meaning of life?  Isn't modern people confused with pleasure being the same as happiness?

 

Now, I have come to a conclusion: "Do you have noble goals of life?" and "Do you know how to spend your time wisely?" These questions are the same as, "Do you know what is happiness?" and "How to gain happiness?" Because the only option we have with life is turn those two granted privileges  with the activities. That turns into my learning, experience, and characters. It is my being.

 

Let's not to confuse about making money is the goal of life. It is first layer of human needs as well as animals. It simply means you turn your time and energies into another form of energy (wealth), issues of wealth is only temporary - it is time being - which will eventually expire. In other words, it is not your permanent possessions, anyone's true possession will be their characters and deeds. Erich Fromm once asked "If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?" Are you living your life with "having mode" or "being mode"? Please refer to his book titled "To Have or To Be"

 

What are the problems of the world? Childishness, your noble characters are not tangible value and you can not show off in this material oriented society over to the riches. But, they will be favored in God's sight. That is my happiness - forever. Oh Heavenly father, have merciful eyes on me! Grant me humbleness!

 

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." II Cor. 4:18 [NIV]

 

? 2014 by Jeeho Lee, Human Engineer?