Why pursuing happiness

Because when we experience happiness, we feel good. Moreover what are the alternatives?

• Not acting or doing nothing. It is like to be dead. We have all the time to be dead during the lifetime of the universe. During our relatively short lifespan compared to the lifespan of the universe, it is better to try something different than to act as if we were dead.
• Simply acting without considering if what we do bring us happiness or not. In this case, sometimes we may feel good and sometimes not. Isn’t it better to actively search for activities that are likely to bring us happiness? Moreover as suggested by Alex Lickerman in the article Why We Must Actively Pursue Happiness if we don’t make happiness our explicit goal, why would we ever ask ourselves which activities we should choose? Why would we ever wonder if one path might be better than another, and therefore choose it?

Why not

Some articles and researches however suggest that it is better not:

• setting unrealistic expectations
• excessively monitoring happiness because they make feel you unhappy. Ozan Varol in the article The problem with pursuing happiness suggests that if we pursue only happiness, we won’t ever leave our comfort zone. Because stepping outside our comfort zone is, by definition, uncomfortable.

Current Conclusions

In conclusion I think that it does not mean that we do not have to pursuit happiness, we have to pursuit happiness indirectly as suggested by the psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar. And again, as suggested in the article of Alex Lickerman, certainly, consciously pursuing happiness may set our expectations high and therefore increase our risk for disappointment, but if we don’t actively seek to be happy we’re far more likely not to become happy at all.

I think that it is better not to focus too much on the outcome itself (feeling happy), but on the activities that may produce happiness. The happiness will come as a result.

Related Questions:

Related Topics:

• Happiness

References

• The problem with pursuing happiness | Ozan Varol
• Why We Must Actively Pursue Happiness | Alex Lickerman M.D. | Psychology Today | 2012
• A Better Way to Pursue Happiness | Lahnna Catalino | Greater Good Magazine | 2015
• Why the pursuit of happiness leads to misery — and what to do about it| Kevin Dickinson | Big Think | 2023
• Can pursuing happiness make you unhappy? | Science Daily | 2018
• Pursue Happiness, But in Moderation | Sonja Lyubomirsky | The New York Times | 2015