[bensyverson]

Ha, this is fun. But there's a kernel of truth to it. The problem with American culture specifically is that it treats "happiness" as a goal, rather than a fleeting feeling that is probably better described with a more specific word (joy, accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction, contentment). Our culture leans on this so hard that people start to think there's something wrong with them if they're not feeling generalized happiness most of the time.

That's just not how life works.

[joshmarlow]

A few years ago I read a claim that the word 'happy' is relatively young - ~500 years old - and that translations of others words into 'happy' are somewhat approximate.

My takeaway is that (presuming the argument is correct) that much of human striving is probably better described with specific words (as you suggested - joy, accomplishment, fulfillment, excitement, etc). For most of human history, most people probably didn't think "I want to be happy" but "I want to have a good partner", "I want a big family", "I want my crop to grow so I don't die."

I wonder how much unhappiness is caused by seeking a poorly-defined ideal of happiness.

The book was called "Power, Pleasure, and Profit: Insatiable Appetites from Machiavelli to Madison".

[throw0101d]

> My takeaway is that (presuming the argument is correct) that much of human striving is probably better described with specific words (as you suggested - joy, accomplishment, fulfillment, excitement, etc).

All those four words combined is something like the concept of eudaimonia that Aristotle describes in his Nicomachean Ethics:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flourishing

[joshmarlow]

I've not read Aristotle directly but translating eudaimonia was an example in the book that I mentioned. The argument was that eudaimonia is often translated as happiness but that doesn't make sense in contexts where we talk about a soldier dying experiencing eudaimonia (suggesting a loose translation).

[limagnolia]

You don't think it possible for some one to die happy?

[Brian_K_White]

No. It's certainly not a goal. And even if it can somehow happen, soneone could be resigned or drugged, it's different from something like "happy to die".

This question itself seems to be a perfect example of the point that the word is worse than meaningless. Worse because people use it like it has a useful meaning.

One can die in a state that has a lot of the qualities or features that overlap with other states that people call happy, but that doesn't make them equal or equivalent.

[hn92726819]

What emotion must people be feeling when they die then?

> the word is worse than meaningless

It seems as though you are redefining it to be meaningless, then projecting that onto everyone else. Is it not curious to you that everyone else takes no issue with its usage?

[limagnolia]

What is your definition of happy?

[bensyverson]

Oh, absolutely. 99.999% of human history has been "just want to survive another year."

Russ Harris has a great book about this called The Happiness Trap [0], which is an introduction to ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)

[0]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/76053/the-happiness...

[tim333]

Dunno. Traveling to less developed places parents still want the kids to be happy for a start. It's surprising in places without roads, internet, phones etc. how normal everything is.

[bensyverson]

It's normal for parents to want their kids to be happy… it's less normal for those kids to be "happy" all the time.

[dotancohen]

The word שמחה and conjugations appear in the Bible about 200 times, so we have a good idea of what it means in context. It means exactly what I perceive the noun Happiness and the adjective Happy to mean in English.

[joshmarlow]

That's very interesting and is good evidence against the thesis - thanks for sharing!

[dharmach]

Just because the word 'happy' is relatively young in the English/European language, a conclusion can not be made for the whole Humankind.

[joshmarlow]

Very true - which is why this piece "that translations of others words into 'happy' are somewhat approximate." would be very interesting if accurate.

[bulbar]

The German word for happy "glücklich" derives from the German word for luck "Glück". Could also be the other way round, idk.

Instead of saying "being lucky" we therefore say "having luck" instead. However, "glücklich" is commonly used in both contexts: "I bin glücklich" (I am happy) is very common as well as "Ein glücklicher Zufall" (A lucky coincidence). It's kind of implied by the language that a lucky coincidence makes you happy.

Makes sense to me that this might even be the origin of the term and the underlying emotion it described. Even hundreds of thousands years ago, people have been lucky from time to time which triggered an emotion: Happiness.

[pamcake]

It makes a lot of sense that "happy" is opposite to "disappointed".

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Thanks for the book recommendation.

[variaga]

"Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette butt, or a chocolate chip cookie or a five second orgasm. You come, you smoke the butt you eat the cookie you go to sleep wake up and go back to f---ing work the next morning, THAT'S IT! End of f---ing list!"

-Dennis Leary

[asah]

+1 - https://www.google.com/search?q=every+brilliant+thing

[fwipsy]

I suspect you would agree with this: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy

Even if feelings are temporary you can still have them more or less often. When somebody says they are happy, of course it does not mean they are experiencing bliss all the time; it means that the relative frequency of positive emotions is high and the relative frequency of negative emotions is low.

I think a lot of people assume it's not possible to be happy because their life circumstances are incompatible with it and they can't or won't change those circumstances. I think in the US at least, the things we want most and the things we strive for are not things that make us happy.

[cortesoft]

I have often felt conflicted about happiness and what we should strive for in our lives.

It is true that most people seem to think happiness is the ultimate goal for life. They say they just want to be happy, that they just want their kids to be happy. Often times, though, it seems almost circular in logic; any time you pushback against the idea of happiness or why being happy all the time isn’t always good, people will just say “oh, that isn’t REAL happiness” or “that actually is happiness!”

Often this is when I bring up hedonism and say, “well, if pure happiness is all that matters, why don’t we all just do heroin all the time? You will feel great!” Of course, they will say “well the high can’t last forever and eventually your life will suck and that is why it isn’t real happiness.

I think it is more than that, though. Imagine you could feel the best feeling you have had all the time, just sitting there. You could just lean back and feel good for as long as you want. Would you want that?

I think most people wouldn’t, and not just because we don’t think it is possible. It is more than that. We want to do hard things that make us work and that hurt a bit and frustrate us, because there is a sense of satisfaction when you persevere. We need to feel pain and sadness, to feel the fullest connection with others through the full range of emotions.

It is not easy to articulate exactly what we want, but it isn’t simply happiness.

[thewebguyd]

> I have often felt conflicted about happiness and what we should strive for in our lives.

It's the striving itself that is the source of our suffering & dissatisfaction

The reason its hard to articulate what we want is we are conditioned to think of our life as a series of targets to hit, but that striving is where we suffer. Maybe you target wealth, then you look for happiness, then you look for meaning, and it doesn't end.

Life is like a fire, you don't ask the fire what its goal is.

> We want to do hard things that make us work and that hurt a bit and frustrate us, because there is a sense of satisfaction when you persevere.

Even with this, making satisfaction the goal will turn it into another struggle or commodity to be consumed. We like hard things because the intensity forces us to be present. The striving mind stops worrying about the future or the past and you are fully present with the task at hand.

Once you can get out of the way of yourself, you realize we don't actually want a better experience, we just want to stop being distracted from the one we're already having.

[bensyverson]

> It's the striving itself that is the source of our suffering & dissatisfaction

thewebguyd out here laying down some Noble Truths!

[fwipsy]

Happiness doesn't have to be the only goal to be worthwhile. Of course people don't want to live in fake bliss. Happiness is a vague term for many specific emotions; the sense of satisfaction from overcoming a difficult challenge is a form of happiness, or contributes to happiness.

[dataviz1000]

"For truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself." -- Herman Melville.

He describing to enjoy the warmth of blankets on a freezing winter night, it is imperative the nose be exposed to the cold likely as a metaphor to enjoy "happiness" something is needed for contrast.

[setsewerd]

It's always fascinating to see how fundamental concepts of Buddhist teachings appear in different names, forms, and metaphors across cultures.

Dependent origination: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da?wp...

While some ideas are more obvious than others I always wonder whether the same insights occurred independently (of each other -- excuse the poor choice of words), or if the ideas can all trace their roots back to the same teachings.

[dataviz1000]

> I always wonder whether the same insights occurred independently

No. Authors, Henry David Thoreau in 1854 and here Melville in 1851, and others at the time in that region were very heavily influenced by Hindu scriptures especially the Bhagavad Gita. Hindu mythology was mentioned several times in Moby Dick including referring to the whale as the Fish Incarnation of Vishnu.

[mikkupikku]

I love that part of Moby Dick, it's so perfectly true. I always sleep with my feet sticking out for this reason.

[Aurornis]

> Our culture leans on this so hard that people start to think there's something wrong with them if they're not feeling generalized happiness most of the time.

I don’t think this is true, unless you’re using ‘happiness’ to refer to euphoria or acute joy.

The happiness that is generally sought is more accurately described as a general lack of sadness or despair. Having a roof over your head, food on the table, a job to go to, decent health, and friends and family is what constitutes basic happiness. That is a good goal to work toward, in my opinion.

[wang_li]

Trying to distinguish happiness from all those other feelings is like trying to separate depressed from all the negative things you feel during a day. Some words do not describe specific emotions, but instead indicate a general state which has all kinds of internal variation and magnitudes. A person who doesn't have much financial stress, their kid isn't having issues that require lots of problem solving from the parent, their job is fine, they are not arguing with their spouse regularly. They would say they are happy. Alternately one can have accomplishments , new PR at the gym, solved an issue at work, but still think of themselves as unhappy because they have things that they prioritize more highly that are not going well.

[jollyllama]

> The problem with American culture specifically is that it treats "happiness" as a goal, rather than a fleeting feeling that is probably better described with a more specific word (joy, accomplishment, excitement, satisfaction, contentment).

Does it really? The sentiment of your post is pretty widespread at this point. It's kind of like saying "our culture is so commercialized" but everyone will tell you they're sick of commercialism.

[fsckboy]

you can't experience Latino culture without thinking that they treat happiness as a goal, it's sort of like you're applying a Germanic/Protestant/Puritanical filter to Americans

also I don't think the more subtle distinctions between happiness and contentment is something people can be expected to maintain in their everyday speech at every moment. That's just not how language works.

[xg15]

Feels to me like this is good old "if a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure".

I.e. happiness is a good measure to identify other things in your life: If something makes you unhappy, address it, if something makes you happy, follow it. (Very simplified)

But if you make "maximizing happiness" the direct target without any context, you get drugs.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Interesting, I interpret happiness as that background feeling of overall satisfaction with my life, with ups and downs but the happiness is a constant.

[alansaber]

It's a balancing act no? Generally you certainly want to optimise to minimise unhappiness but not to the point of avoiding conflict/difficulty.

[m463]

You could also say the same general thing for being goal-oriented instead of process-oriented for anything else.

[xtiansimon]

> “happiness" as a goal

More joy and less suffering is my goal.

Is that better, vis-a-vis suffering as the alternative.

[Henchman21]

This reminds me so very much of that old American greeting: "Hey! How are you?" and then you don't give a shit about the actual answer, which must always be positive.

Having to explain to young children that people do this simply to say hello, that they aren't actually asking you your health or state, or anything really. Falls right in line with our need to smile ALL THE TIME.

I stand by statements made by my European friends: Americans are mostly full of shit, mostly liars, and ALWAYS are trying to sell you something.

Are we the Baddies? Yes, of fucking course we are.

[asah]

happiness <> euphoria

[randallsquared]

Indeed. This just illustrates Goodhart's Law.

[zombot]

Happiness, when pursued, does its best to escape.

[gotwaz]

More like modern marketing depts and marketing theory leaning on it. They have replaced what religions used to offer when people asked about purpose, meaning, transcendence or what is the point of my story? Just telling people this is all just some biology and chemistry doesnt really answer questions about meaning. They will start searching for meaning elsewhere and marketing depts of corporate wonderland step in to fill the void.