HAPPINESS, A DISCIPLINE

In troubled and anxiety-ridden times, how can we access happiness?

The first step is, of course, to define what we mean by happiness.

What are we really talking about?

Our esteemed National Center for Textual and Lexical Resources defines happiness as “the essentially moral state generally attained by human beings when they have obtained everything they perceive as good and have been able to fully satisfy their desires, completely fulfill their various aspirations, and find balance in the harmonious development of their personality.”

More simply put, happiness can be understood as a balanced, serene, and lasting emotional state – one that stands in contrast to pleasure, which is more superficial and fleeting. We already discussed the notions of pleasure, materiality and success here.

The concept of happiness, studied since Antiquity, has evolved considerably over time and can be examined from religious, philosophical, sociological, political, and of course psychoanalytical perspectives.

I will spare you the detailed accounts of how happiness has been conceptualized by the Epicureans, the Stoics, the humanists, the Enlightenment philosophers, the Rousseauists, Kant, Marx, or Freud. As fascinating as that may be, it would deserve one or two thesis and that is not our purpose today.

The truth is that we now live in an ultra- or even post-capitalist world where everything is financialized – even human beings – and where the enduring notion of happiness has been deliberately blurred, confused with the fleeting notion of pleasure, which is directly linked to materiality and overconsumption – even if impoverishment spreads everywhere.

The truth is that agitation predominates everywhere. We evolve in a profoundly confused world where violence and division reign – violence and division fueled by systems and political figures who hide behind (or create) the prevailing chaos to, at best, mask their inadequacy and/or incompetence – or at worst, to profit from it.

The truth is that we are, often without realizing it, living through a digital revolution that overwhelms us with trivial content, fake news and deep fakes, pushing us to doubt everything.

The truth is that we no longer trust anything, and disillusion reigns everywhere.

The world is on fire, my friends.

And it is hard to be happy in a world on fire.

So how can we be happy under such conditions?

It seems to me that happiness requires the passage through four stages: lucidity, detachment, decision and discipline.

It is because we are lucid about who we are, about the world that surrounds us, about the inevitability of death – and because we fully accept these realities – that we can detach ourselves from them and cease to suffer.

It is because we consciously and wholeheartedly decide to be happy that we can then discipline ourselves to honor that decision and, in doing so, access happiness.

Simple, isn’t it?

Ahahahahahhhhhh.

No, of course not.

Lucidity requires long, difficult work on oneself – intellectual work, since knowledge brings understanding, but above all emotional work. Just because we know something intellectually does not mean we can easily integrate it emotionally. Thus, detachment does not necessarily follow lucidity, and we may live through the same negative event in completely different ways on the intellectual and emotional levels – the most common example being “I know this person isn’t right for me, but I cannot let go,” accompanied by regret, remorse and suffering.

In the same way, deciding to be happy does not mean waking up one morning and declaring that from now on, one will live in a permanent state of happiness – and that’s all.

It is a near-permanent decision, recalculated almost at every instant – because throughout our day we all encounter negative events, some minor, some grave, but all capable of touching the deepest part of who we are.

Happiness means choosing not to privilege the negative events that impact our lives, but instead choosing how we will welcome them and how we will respond.

It means being able to look oneself straight in the eye and recognize what those events awaken in us.

It means putting things into perspective.

It means forcing ourselves toward what is good and beneficial.

It is a discipline.

A discipline that, depending on the person, depending on the event, may be perfectly integrated and almost automatic, or on the contrary, the fruit of serious reflection and a fully conscious effort, sometimes quite complex.

And because happiness is a near-permanent decision, it is played out everyday – and that is precisely what makes it so difficult, because it demands sustained effort.

Difficult, because discipline often means not giving in to our natural inclination, to the easy way out.

Difficult, because discipline often means doing what we naturally do not want to do.

In daily life, this can mean putting down your phone and leaving social media behind, turning instead toward more nourishing content – yes, you have to pick up that book.

It can mean getting off the couch and going for a walk – yes, even polluted city air can do you good.

It can mean pushing yourself to exercise regularly, even when you’re tired, even when you don’t feel like it – yes, you have to lace up those sneakers.

It can mean stopping at two wine glasses when you could drink the whole bottle and more without faltering – yes, alcohol breeds depression.

On an emotional level, it often means letting go of the emotional baggage we carry, deactivating the suffering it generates so we can observe it from a distance – yes, you have to go to therapy.

It often means locking away the dark side that haunts each of us, so it does not invade our entire being – yes, we manifest a “Not today, Satan” even if we are not particularly religious.

It means refusing to let the darkness of the world resonate with our own dark side – the ones we must keep carefully locked away.

It often means staying alert, keeping our eyes open, and detecting beauty wherever it can be found – whether material or immaterial – because beauty draws us toward what is good and true.

It means refusing to be swallowed up by the darkness of the world.

Each of us will have our own discipline. The important thing is to find the one that works – the one that shields us from unhappiness. The important thing is also to avoid any type of happiness injunction or tyranny and embrace the fact that some days will be darker than others.

Good luck to us all, I am tempted to say.