What is "happiness?"
Origins & misunderstandings...
Our word “happiness” originates somewhere in the 14th c. CE from “hap,” meaning lucky or fortunate
This beginning is still present in our use of the word: we associate it, for example, with “good luck”
This sense is reflected in Jefferson’s using the phrase pursuit of happiness in writing the Declaration of Independence
And the sense that it must be something we can chase after is manifest in the popularity of gambling
This is not uniquely American, of course; it’s become universal, owing partly to the spread of capitalism: understood as the pursuit of profit (often used to mean pursuit of happiness)
Thus we live in a world shaped by the contrary forces of effort and chance: and they are contraries: “chance” is literally unpredictable (once again underlining the appeal of gambling)
So aiming for or pursuing “happiness” is futile, if it’s a matter of chance
An older view of “happiness” was that it was an achievement…
The ancient Greek term was eudaimonia, literally “good character” (rather than the usual translation as “happiness”
(The term “daimon”—the origin of “demon”—meant something more like a deep or basic quality, which is the sense in which I mean “character”)
This is something we can pursue: character is something that can be formed; each of us gives shape to the personal & social forces that surround us
That is, I have to decide, to choose, the meaning of the world & the people around me…
Things—and others—do not come with any meaning or sense: these are qualities I have to assign to them
It’s this act of giving meaning to things—and to the things others do—that comes to form my character
I repeat: things do not have meaning; they have to be given meaning
So my character is at the same time formed and expressed in the kind of meaning I give to what happens around & to me
Thus the ancient Greeks thought it took a lifetime to achieve eudaimonia
But it’s just as likely that the way our lives unfold reveals our quality of character as we are engaged in forming it…
TLDR: Only the Best You can ever have the best life for You.