On happiness: what is it that we all seek?

Happiness - what a beautiful word. Have you ever wondered where it comes from? Have you ever wondered what it means to you? Have you ever wondered why we all search for it? In these lines you may discover your own answers to begin to discover how happy you are.

• Related article: "The 5 types of happiness, and how to reach this state"

The concept of happiness

From the founding of civilization to the present day, many people have reflected on this construct that we call happiness, which is why, as Elsa Punset very aptly writes in Happy, the study of happiness “more than discovery, it is a reunion ”with the reflections and conclusions of other humans before us.

Other humans who were and are thinkers, explorers of different cultures, artists, poets, neuroscientists who study the brain, philosophers who "love to know", sociologists who analyze society, anthropologists who compare cultures, psychologists who, in their "study of the mind", try to unravel the mental cobweb that is logos or knowledge about happiness human.

Its etymological originTherefore, it also depends on the civilization that is observed. On the one hand, it is related to the Greek root Eudaimonia (eudaimonia) which literally means “good fortune”.

If we decompose the word into its two elements: eu, which means "good", and dáimonos which means "divinity", the key to happiness was found by the Greeks in the one who has a good spirit, or who has a good spirit.

The same happens in Anglo-Saxon countries appealing to the concept of "favorable luck", as in the meaning of Happiness, which comes from Happen: to happen by chance. Or we can also understand it in German, Glück, from Gelingen, which literally means "to be successful"; Let's take a look, then, that in English Luck (or Good luck) is equivalent to the German word Glück. Interesting, right?

• You may be interested: "Daniel Kahneman and his studies on happiness"

The mental side of the happy person

From a cognitive point of view, happiness can be described as a series of thoughts about our emotions that produce an inner, deep and lasting well-being. The very definition of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), we might think, confirms the aforementioned:

Happiness; from lat. congratulate, -atis. F. State of pleasant spiritual and physical satisfaction. F. Person, situation, object or group of them that contribute to being happy. F. Absence of inconveniences or obstacles.

At present, this has generated a recurring confusion between the terms eudaimonia and hedonism (hedoné-ἡδονή), since, as promulgated by positive psychology, the purpose of human life is happiness, sometimes understood - erroneously - as pleasure, (Cfr Bueno, 2005; Lozano et al., 2016) in Colmenarejo Fernández, R. (2017). And I say wrongly because pleasure is not equal to happiness, but pleasure by definition must always be relegated to a part of our complete happiness. I will develop this idea in my next article.

And it is that perhaps the purpose of human life is not to live happily, but just to live. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to understand pleasure as a means and not as an end? The difference, then, is that while hedonism focuses on immediate pleasure, we could currently call joy, eudaimonia is the constant fullness of living life, which we could currently call happiness.

Beyond definitions

Happiness is a topic that everyone thinks about but few people study. Although we may never agree on the exact definition of happiness, this is rather one of those things that you can't define, but when you see it you know what it is. And the reality is that each individual, according to the culture in which he is irretrievably immersed, and his personal experiences, forms throughout his life a concept about his own happiness.

During my research on the subject, I have come to realize that the pursuit of happiness is something very relevant in our current society, as it involves many people, and most human beings want to be happy.

At the time of this writing, I have a sample of 275 people between the ages of 7 and 108. With 66% women and 34% men, the vast majority of Spanish nationality. 50% live in urban areas and 50% live in rural areas. The current occupation is studying or working, or both.

The key question

The first question I ask someone who wants to know how happy they are is: How are you?

In general, most people say they are "fine." Okay, people are fine, but being fine doesn't necessarily mean being happy. And the results show that 9 out of 10 people will tell you that they want to be happy. The other person thinks so too, but they won't tell you.

But what is happiness? Fernández-Berrocal already wrote in his article that “the attempt to answer this question may seem pretentious and it is natural for the reader to think so, because even the questioner has his hand shaking as he says it. write". I think the same is happening to me.

But that doesn't worry me, nor should it worry you. Because what I propose (and perhaps this is the key to the necessary paradigm shift) is ask ourselves how people are happy, instead of asking ourselves again and again what happiness is. In this way, just by changing a passive what for a proactive how, we will come to understand happiness as a personal decision and not as an object that can -or should- be achieved.

The message is clear: the study of happiness and all that it entails is a subject of utmost importance to the human species. If we live happily, we live longer and better. In the end, what you will realize is that, although reflection on happiness is left to a few, the pursuit of happiness is universal.

Bibliographic references:

• Colmenarejo Fernández, R. (2017). The problem of happiness in Aristotle: responses from Francisco Suárez and Martha Nussbaum. Annals of La Cátedra Francisco Suárez, 51, 27–27.
• Julián Pérez Porto and María Merino. Published: 2009. Updated: 2009. Definition.of: Definition of happiness ( https://definicion.de/felicidad/).
• The five thieves of happiness. John Izzo, 2017 (Uranus).
• To answer the online questionnaire About happiness, enter the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/gMHJcbvLRRiQCrew2.