Defining Happiness – Nailing Jello to the Wall

How do you go about defining happiness? Today, NASA flew a helicopter – albeit a small one – on Mars.

How would you explain to someone that has never learned about other planets or has never seen a helicopter what that’s all about?

Flying a remote-control helicopter on Mars is a big accomplishment. But for someone that doesn’t understand the distances involved, the technology required, and the relatively thin atmosphere on Mars it’s impossible to grasp the significance of this moment.

Happiness is much like today’s helicopter flight on Mars.

People understand that they are happy – or aren’t – but have very little grasp of what has gone into the manufacturing of their happiness.

Why did it happen? How did it happen? What made it happen?

What’s made me happy?

Why am I unhappy?

Without answers to these questions, your happiness is at the mercy of the weather, your health, and circumstances beyond your control. If you don’t know what happiness is (what goes into being happy) the happy state of mind might as well be as unreachable as Mars. Your emotional well-being will be pushed around with every word said by others and every circumstance – positive or negative – that comes into your day.

So let’s try to put a nail into jello and stick it to the wall.

Defining happiness. What is happiness?

Is it a feeling? – Yes

Is it contentment? – Yes.

Is it a choice? – Yes

Is it an outlook and perspective? – Yes

But we must be able to differentiate happiness from euphoria.

Oxford dictionary says that euphoria is “a feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness.”

Now it’s great when the currents of circumstance and feelings collide in a moment or two of euphoria, but that level of positive emotion isn’t easily replicable or sustainable. Therefore, the euphoria felt when something great happens to you or for you isn’t the same as the ongoing happiness that you need to aim for in your life.

Defining happiness: The other misunderstanding we have to dispense with is the confusion between joy and happiness.

Joy is peace of the soul given to us through a right vertical relationship with our Creator. Joy is not something that we manipulate, it is a by-product of that relationship. Joy lives at a deeper level – a soul level. Joy is not conditional upon circumstance.

Happiness, in contrast to joy, is something that we can control and manipulate through the judicious use of a wide variety of tools. Happiness exists on the emotional level and is characterized by immediacy and fluctuation. Happiness can be impacted through circumstance and therefore must be monitored, maintained, and managed.

So, let’s get about defining happiness.

Happiness is your emotional response to how your body and mind perceive, control, and react to all of the details of your life. Happiness is a mindset driven by hundreds of factors and brought under our control through the daily use – to one extent or another – of dozens of physical, emotional, and spiritual tools.

I sign off nearly every piece of correspondence with, “Have a happy day!”

Why?

Because happiness is something I wish for you.

Because the statement reminds me that happiness is possible and that it is something within our control.

So…Have a happy day.

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