LESSON 2: Is Happiness the Purpose of Life?
"One must practice the things which produce happiness, since if that is present we have everything and if it absent we do everything in order to have it."
--- Epicurus
All of us want to escape suffering. Who wants it anyway? No one ever wakes up in the morning saying that, "I wish I suffer today." We do everything to get that happiness that we all wanted. The only thing that confuses us is that, we don't know how to differentiate a genuine happiness from superficial happiness.
Everyday, we look for new ways to build relationships, grow friendships, love others, enrich ourselves, protect our loved ones, and keep ourselves from any harm. We give our time and effort in doing these things for we believe that these will give us that sense of fulfillment.
Whatever term we name it, we always go back to this question: "Isn't happiness the goal of all goals?"
According to Stephen Kosslyn, a Harvard professor, it is not happiness that gets him up from his bed but his duty for his family, work, and society. And then we realize, after we fully accomplished these duties, we will eventually feel that sense of true happiness.
However, we often misidentify the things that will make us achieve that well-being we wanted. This is what we call Ignorance. It does not mean stupidity, but it is when we don't get the real picture of a situation.
How about a Taste of Suffering?
Sometimes, happiness gets a little boring since it always the same. On the other hand, suffering is exciting since it comes in different ways. There are times that we need those contrasting situations in our lives to give it meaning. Yet, we don't want to trade that happiness for moments of suffering.
To balance, we can use suffering as a vehicle to improve ourselves, to help us transform into a better being. It may hurt a bit, but it doesn't mean evil. when we say it is not evil, it is the suffering that we ca't avoid, yet we find ways to turn it into something that is beneficial.
What do we need to become happy?
We get confused to what happiness is -- is it the achievement of our wishes and passions, or is the sense of inner fulfillment? When we weren't able to determine which is which, frustration overcomes us.
Even if all our desires will be achieved, it will not lead to happiness but to new desires, or maybe indifference, disgust, or even depression. Why depression? It is because, as we continue to seek for ways to achieve our goals, it also opens us to the thought that happiness is hard to achieve, then doubt comes along with it.
To ponder about this, I have taken a picture from the book that would define what could bring us that happiness,
If we don't have that inner peace and wisdom, we have NOTHING we need to be happy.
Does our happiness depends on that of others?
If we only seek for a kind of selfish happiness, then our life will be goal-less. Even if you let other people see every sign of happiness in you, still, we can't be happy if we turn ourselves away from the happiness of others. It is important to understand that if we love others, we should love ourselves, too. same thing goes with happiness. We make ourselves happy by making other people happy.
I want to quote a statement from the book, and it says:
In order to achieve happiness, it should also be accompanied by love for every being.
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