Achieving Happiness: Needs vs Wants
I feel that happiness is the key goal in life: happiness is closely tied to satisfaction, and I personally always aim to be satisfied with what I do in the life I live. If I reach the end of my life, and am satisfied with how I lived it, then I would be happy.
Answering the question of what one needs to be happy versus what they want to be happy is another argument. Back to the satisfaction side, I feel that an individual’s needs provide basic satisfaction, but true satisfaction (and thus happiness) can only come from desires and wants in life. Our basic needs can be satisfied by having a consistent food supply, housing, clothing, a reliable source of income, etc. These things make you fundamentally satisfied and happy, particularly when they’re stable and provide security over your well being. While it’s not always exciting to have these things (particularly when you’re used to them and may take them for granted), without them, I feel that happiness is difficult to achieve. If the needs in your life aren’t taken care of, you can’t move onto enjoying the other things.
On the flip side, I would argue a different type of happiness is derived from one’s wants. This marginal happiness is what can really bring joy in life. Since we become accustomed to our surroundings and often doing enjoy the things we are used to, our desires can provide additional happiness and joy that may be diminished by the normality of our lives. Instead of a steady food source, many are made happy by their favorite meals, or the opportunity to try new and exotic foods. Instead of just financial stability, many are pleased by disposable income that allows for travelling or taking time off of work. Instead of simple clothing, many are satisfied by new wardrobe updates to express themselves. Having contact with more friends and family can make some happy, while having more alone time pleases others. Dedicating time to hobbies can similarly bring that extra pleasure.
It is those personal choices that I feel allows one to become truly happy, to live their life how they’d like to and providing them the freedom to make themselves happy. While you need the fundamentals of life to be happy, it’s what you build on top of that to reach lasting satisfaction. Of course, it takes knowing what makes you happy to be able to reach happiness, but that’s another story.
I think it's really interesting how you identify happiness as a goal. I've always found it really hard to think of it that way -- it's all well and good to say that "I want to be happy" but when it comes to actually getting there, I feel like "be happy" is too abstract and large of a concept to really be translated into things I can do. I'm a total mom friend, so I'm usually the one who ends up on comforting a sad friend duty, and one of the strategies that tends to work really well is instead of trying to fix the problem they're worried about, which is usually way too big for me to handle, I like telling them to come up with 3-5 things that they can do right now to make themselves feel better. Usually they're really small things like eat a cookie, put on a face mask, listen to music, etc, but I find that breaking up big concepts like "feel better" or "be happy" into small, easily manageable tasks is the best way to achieve the larger goal.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that Soul is super relevant here. I feel like maybe though what it tells us is that finding happiness is less about indulging an ever-growing list of wants, but rather a way of moving through life. (If anyone hasn't watched Soul STOP READING) Joe doesn't gain fulfillment by achieving his lifelong dream of playing in a jazz band. Instead, he finds happiness through the experiences of 23, who takes things that Joe normally didn't appreciate (pizza, time with his mother, the way leaves fall from trees) and finds so much joy and wonder in them that these everyday experiences become her reason for living. I think it's very difficult to be happy when your basic needs aren't met, but once you're at that point, wants aren't going to make you happy. Instead, I think what Soul teaches us is that happiness is the state of being grateful for what we have and being excited about everyday life experiences, rather than the achievement of any particular goals.
I love how you break happiness into small tasks, it does a great job of emphasizing how happiness is obtained through small choices in everyday life. I completely agree with how you mention happiness should be approached by the little things, especially when starting out in a down position.
DeleteI feel that your comment helped me clarify my opinions. My argument was a little heavy on the materialistic examples, but obtaining happiness can absolutely, and frequently, be sourced from the little things, as Soul taught us. I feel that once we meet our needs, we are then able to really happy, whether it is through hobbies or just appreciating the little things like pizza, a train bagel, or a helicopter seed (as with 23). I feel that those little things can easily be overlooked, especially when you're concerned with meeting your needs in life first.
I suppose my point was a little narrow initially, saying that wants are what allow you to be happy after achieving your needs. In general, I feel that it is more of meeting your needs allows you to obtain happiness through having the time and mental resource to appreciate the good things in your life. Happiness is definitely an ever-changing journey, and I agree concrete goals/objects can't get you there, but rather the ability to enjoy life, in whatever form it takes for you.
Y'all -- GREAT discussion. I haven't watched all of Soul yet, so I'm going to temporarily tap out, but I saw enough in the beginning to be bummed that I couldn't incorporate it into class. I would love to start the semester with a screening of it, where we all get together in White or somewhere and just take it all in. Womp womp.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great discussion!!
Jack,
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting you identify the theory that there are levels to happiness. Maybe you already know, but in the 20th century, a psychologist by the name of Abraham Maslow had a very similar idea. In fact, his ideas are now called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The idea is that humans have a pyramid of needs. From bottom to top, they are physiological needs (such as food and water), safety needs, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Though the order is sometimes disputed, the idea that there is a progression of needs has remained. That said, I can only partly agree with your equivalency of happiness with satisfaction. I think your idea that if you can retrospectively appreciate your actions, then you can be satisfied with your life, and therefore happy is true. However, I feel the word "satisfaction" implies a sort of neutrality that happiness does not. Moreover, because my need for food and water has been satisfied, I can't say that I am consciously happy that I have them. To add to your argument: what if happiness were the level above satisfaction? This induces some relativism, and puts happiness back in the frame of a non-neutral emotion. In other words, maybe we are happy when have achieved something greater than satisfaction?
I like how you touch on hobbies, and I make a similar argument in my own blog post. I think hobbies can be a fantastic tool to creating happiness for ourselves.
I'm really interested with your connection to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, it was definitely interesting to check out!
DeleteTo clarify my point a little more, I think we just need to meet our basic needs in order to be able to be truly happy - I agree that the needs themselves do not typically make us consciously happy. That happiness is then derived through the satisfaction we can get from any number of personal things, such as the hobbies. The distinction between happiness and satisfaction is another interesting point you bring up. Along with levels of happiness, I feel there are levels of satisfaction. Satisfaction from basic needs is definitely different than, say, satisfaction from spending time with family which may bring happiness.
Appreciate the dialogue, you raised some great points!