Many of us think that happiness is the true purpose of life- at least many of the atheists. For theists, the purpose would generally be to serve God by performing duties while being thankful through prayers. Duties can range from selfish needs at worst, to kids' needs, friends and relatives needs, mankind's needs and in the best case scenario, the whole environment's needs. By best I mean best in my opinion, and not at any objective level. Anyway, for most atheists, the purpose to life can be a but murky. For fans of evolution, there's the theory that love for your species is the purpose to one's life. Love for mankind needn't only be shown through charity and in most cases should not be (as I talked about in the post- "The right way to treat a person"). Focusing on selfish or family level interests are probably a good idea and this generally makes other families and individuals focus on themselves and make the whole world better. There are exceptions to the rule that self-interest promotes overall group interests, but in an environment where the judicial system is well structured- i.e our actions are governed by a set of rules that ensure that self interest does not lead to detrimental consequences at a larger level, things should be fine. For instance, it might be of self-interest for a guy to shoot his boss, but then that would cause chaos that is beyond acceptability, and would bring down mankind in the long run, and so it is unlawful to do so.
Whatever be the aim of a person, it can by hypothesised that the aim can be simplified to happiness, because his aim in life when fulfilled, should give him happiness. This takes care of the problem of having an aim that is not aligned with one's values as well. A person who has an aim of educating the world- but without believing in the cause, would not get much happiness in doing so. So, a person who has the right set of values and morals can bring good to the world if he tries to make himself happy. He may become happy by helping the underpriviledged or by making himself rich.
I'd like to categorise happiness and long and short term happiness. Short term happiness includes the happiness you get by doing thing like watching a movie or going out with friends or just sitting around and doing nothing. I''ll refer to short term happiness simply by the word 'happiness'. Long term happiness is a result of all your past actions and it's something that is much stronger and more meaningful- and I'll refer to this as 'purpose'. By stronger I mean that it cannot be taken away from you easily- you cant make Mr. Barrack Obama sad by telling him that he wasted his life away. But you could make him sad by taking away his sandwich when he's really hungry. It's more meaningful because you can't fool yourself with purpose. You can be happy by not doing homework but it doesn't give you any tangible benefits. The feeling of purpose can be achieved only by achieving things in the long run. But is this a rule?
Well, I wouldn't think so. In a famous experiment, people who lost their limbs and people who won lotteries went back to similar levels of general happiness a few months after the respective incidents. It's not uncommon to see very poor people or beggars who are very happy with their lives while MNC CEOs or top actors may not be happy with theirs. In this case, happiness comes down to meeting your expectations. The feeling of accomplishment (which I earlier called purpose) can be achieved even by not doing much but believing that you are actually doing enough. According to Dan Gilbert, people have this unique capability to synthesise happiness, and this happiness is not in any way inferior to the happiness you get when you get the things you desire. Synthesising happiness consists of being satisfied with who you are. People like Buddha figured this out long back and suggested people to not desire things. This would help them synthesise happiness but then it's not very meaningful when you synthesise purpose, is it? Anyway according to Gilbert, there are two kinds of happiness and this is a different way of looking at the same problem- the happiness you get from getting things you want and the happiness you get by being satisfied with what you have.
So what do you do now? Well my suggestion is to go for a mixture of happiness and purpose and leave the synthesis of happiness to its natural ways. And by the way, the reason why people may marry spouses who are rich and succesful and organised is to help with their feeling of purpose. This might be compromise on happiness (short-term) if the person is boring to hang out with. It must be remembered that happiness and purpose are to a large extent independent and a healthy combination of both are required for a happy, succesful life. A slight tilt towards purpose would probably help, though.
Whatever be the aim of a person, it can by hypothesised that the aim can be simplified to happiness, because his aim in life when fulfilled, should give him happiness. This takes care of the problem of having an aim that is not aligned with one's values as well. A person who has an aim of educating the world- but without believing in the cause, would not get much happiness in doing so. So, a person who has the right set of values and morals can bring good to the world if he tries to make himself happy. He may become happy by helping the underpriviledged or by making himself rich.
I'd like to categorise happiness and long and short term happiness. Short term happiness includes the happiness you get by doing thing like watching a movie or going out with friends or just sitting around and doing nothing. I''ll refer to short term happiness simply by the word 'happiness'. Long term happiness is a result of all your past actions and it's something that is much stronger and more meaningful- and I'll refer to this as 'purpose'. By stronger I mean that it cannot be taken away from you easily- you cant make Mr. Barrack Obama sad by telling him that he wasted his life away. But you could make him sad by taking away his sandwich when he's really hungry. It's more meaningful because you can't fool yourself with purpose. You can be happy by not doing homework but it doesn't give you any tangible benefits. The feeling of purpose can be achieved only by achieving things in the long run. But is this a rule?
Well, I wouldn't think so. In a famous experiment, people who lost their limbs and people who won lotteries went back to similar levels of general happiness a few months after the respective incidents. It's not uncommon to see very poor people or beggars who are very happy with their lives while MNC CEOs or top actors may not be happy with theirs. In this case, happiness comes down to meeting your expectations. The feeling of accomplishment (which I earlier called purpose) can be achieved even by not doing much but believing that you are actually doing enough. According to Dan Gilbert, people have this unique capability to synthesise happiness, and this happiness is not in any way inferior to the happiness you get when you get the things you desire. Synthesising happiness consists of being satisfied with who you are. People like Buddha figured this out long back and suggested people to not desire things. This would help them synthesise happiness but then it's not very meaningful when you synthesise purpose, is it? Anyway according to Gilbert, there are two kinds of happiness and this is a different way of looking at the same problem- the happiness you get from getting things you want and the happiness you get by being satisfied with what you have.
So what do you do now? Well my suggestion is to go for a mixture of happiness and purpose and leave the synthesis of happiness to its natural ways. And by the way, the reason why people may marry spouses who are rich and succesful and organised is to help with their feeling of purpose. This might be compromise on happiness (short-term) if the person is boring to hang out with. It must be remembered that happiness and purpose are to a large extent independent and a healthy combination of both are required for a happy, succesful life. A slight tilt towards purpose would probably help, though.
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