Is a pursuit of personal happiness valid
Hi, I’ve noticed that most social groups that were intentional participate in (eg. church) seem to me to be “happiness clubs” - whether people are together seeking to find happiness in relationships with others. The rules of these clubs is that everybody has to be happy or at least pretend to be. If for example you are depressed (as I have been) interaction in the settings just don’t work - people don’t know how to respond, conversation is either ended (eg. with a comment that things will get better), changed or just dried up. Even if people seem to care there is no follow up and the next time there is a meeting I seem to be avoided. And hence I come to the realisation that in most settings people are primarily seeking ways to be happy. I am questioning whether this is a valid pursuit. What do people think?
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For me, someone 20-odd years down the road from a bi polar diagnosis in adulthood, I aim for contentment and self-control. I spend a fair bit of time checking myself for behavioral or circumstantial signs that I am in danger of experiencing mania or depression. It is my mood that governs how I perceive things and relate to others. That's why my aim isn't happiness, but contentment and self-control. I want to choose how I behave as much as possible.
In my experience, church, community or interest groups are not the best places to salve mental distress. That comes from learning to know and accept yourself as you are.
For me, that requires medication, counselling, effort and time. For me, medication was very important. It gave me the capacity to devote effort and time to learning to live with myself.
In Christian terms, learning to know and accept yourself means accepting that you are worthy of love, and are in fact loved by God: that no matter what you have done or may do, you will always be loved by God. That sure and certain knowledge turned me from being a person yearning to be acknowledged as talented and erudite to one yearning to love without condition.
In answer to your question I think it's valid , but not as an exclusive pursuit.
As far as caring for others is concerned the instructions in an aircraft are 'put on your own oxygen mask before attempting to help others '.
I put on my oxygen mask in walks and more than ever in work. I litter pick on the way to and from it. That gives me immense self-satisfaction.
As to know how to help others, we need the right skills and tools (these can be learnt) but also (pious hat on, sorry! ) need to stay close to God, or better, "Practice the presence of god".
In 'Superman l', Lois is falling from a helicopter trapped at the top of a tower block. She falls quite a way before Superman sweeps in, catches her and holds her. "Don't worry", he says, "I've got you". A still terrified Lois looks down. "But who's got you?" she asks.
So I am not really understanding these happiness clubs you are describing. I would say I do seek happiness, but perhaps what you mean by that is different from what I mean. If I am sad because, say, someone has died, then I don't seek to not be sad. I seek to grieve and feel the feelings. But if I am in a cycle of negative thinking, feeling down on myself, pessimistic about the future, this can be very disabling and unhealthy, so I do seek ways to get out of this cycle, to add some positive, interesting, different experiences to my life.
I have a friend I talk to about this sort of thing. She has quite severe disability and pain, and a lot of family stress, and she has to try very hard to be positive just to function. But it's not a fake positive, where you ignore all the negative. It's about feeling the negative feelings, having a rant and a cry, but then not staying in those feelings forever - then looking for some nice things to focus on. I find her approach a wise one, and I find it helpful when I try to implement it in my own life. And that seems to be a happiness where you can listen to other people when they are struggling and having a hard time, and also express when you are struggling and having a hard time.
I suppose there is an extreme where people always want to talk about their negative feelings and experiences, and you listen, and empathise, and the person repeats these same things again and again, every conversation, and says how miserable they are about it, so you find possible positive perspectives, to try to encourage and help them, but they don't want that. They only want to repeat the same negative things every time and for you to keep agreeing with them that their life is shit and they are an eternal victim. And from a listener perspective, that can become very draining, so in that sort of situation, I have learnt to develop some quite firm boundaries, so I don't get dragged into the person's cycle of misery. And if they don't like that, they may decide to distance from me, and talk to someone who will stay in the misery cycle with them, and reinforce their beliefs and thinking patterns. It's a tough one, because we all have our limitations, and sometimes a person needs some professional help. But in a friendly, healthy social group, where people have built up relationships and trust, people should be able to sometimes express that they're going through a hard time, and people should listen and be kind.
Perhaps one of the problems with happiness is what we think it is, rather than what it really is.
You're supposed to love other people as you love yourself. So you should want yourself to be happy for any definition of happy you would want for other people.
On the other hand, that shouldn't mean avoiding other people's unhappiness in circumstances where you can help or indeed, failing to recognise one's own unhappiness.
It’s not tied to wealth, as such, but it is tied to the ability to spend one’s time doing the things that provide for well-being, which would include (but isn’t limited to) earning a living.
I don't believe that your church friends are focused on seeking happiness as much as they are desperately trying to paper over social awkwardness. It's not fair or right or kind, but most of us in Western societies aren't socially conditioned to respond well to anyone who, for whatever reason, isn't able to put on the Doing Fine, Thanks mask for public interactions.
Lower taxes than in Britain - the colonies were a tax haven not unlike the Isle of Man today.
I'm not sure you have that right. My feeling is that by 1776, Parliament was firmly in control of the King, not the other way around. I haven't looked at the period in detail, but given his infirmity, I'd be surprised if he had much input into affairs of state. I'm happy to be corrected, but recognise that this is a tangent.
wise and on point.
The standard wording was "life, liberty, and property." In some of his other writings Jefferson stated his opinion that property, other than personal, portable property (i.e., not land, which was what most of his class thought of when they said "property") was a social construct, not a natural right. Some believe he was trying to finesse the point without being too confrontational.
All of this.
It happens sometimes that a person says "How are you?" or something similar as part of a social ritual which basically means "I acknowledge you as a human being" and little more than that, but the other person takes it literally and starts pouring their heart out about all their troubles. And sometimes that makes everybody feel awkward, either because it's not the right time or place (say, you're about to start a business meeting) or because nobody feels competent to deal with a crisis that severe, and they're basically scared and don't know what to do. They weren't expecting such a heavy response and don't know what to say in reply--and they feel very much out of their depth when it comes to any follow-up care.
It would be good if all people were more competent in crisis care, or at least in knowing who to refer you to. But most people aren't and never will be. Which is why if you are the one in crisis (I speak from experience) you are better off to approach those who are likely to have that training--your pastor or priest, your doctor, a counselor, etc.--and not pour it all out on a group that is assembled for quite a different purpose. I say this as someone who has had several of these awkward conversations at church in the past two weeks, as my mother is dying and our relationship is very conflicted. When random people say "How are you?" I do say, "Well, it's a bit hard, my mother is dying," and they express sorrow and shock and I say thanks and that's the end of it. They just aren't trained or educated to handle much more than basic sympathy. And usually they were expecting a brief "hello" in the hallway as we head to Bible study, and not a half-hour of me pouring my guts out.
So I really think it's mostly up to me to know what the people I'm talking to can handle--and to direct my deeper needs to the more appropriately trained.
That is what I said. The King got the Parliament to rubber stamp the imposition of certain taxes on the colonies. I think what really riled the wealthy colonists did not have representation in the British Parliament.
I am one of those people who can easily handle the difficult conversations where people unburden themselves of their troubles; I am an ex-nurse who lectures in health and social care (including death and dying), I teach students who often have a wide range of challenges in their lives, and my own research is into supporting students with mental health challenges. People tell me about their problems every day and that is okay by me. I don’t form strong attachments with other people with mental health challenges though, as I need to protect my own mental health. I focus on having a positive outlook to manage my daily life, much as fineline discusses.
I am very open about having bipolar disorder, it is a strong part of my identity and I discuss my mania and depression in a straightforward way, but I don’t expect follow up beyond promises of prayer and the occasional enquiry as to how I am doing. I accept that many other people aren’t comfortable with difficult conversations and I am conscientious about how I share my own challenges and who with. I see my church friends’ as a supportive community who will be sympathetic and non-judgemental but they are not my counsellors. That is why my church has a pastoral team, so that people can access the right people for support.
I believe the first draft of the Declaration of Independence used the phrase "life, liberty, and property". This phrase is borrowed directly from John Locke, but Jefferson decided that "pursuit of happiness" was more rhetorically evocative.
George III didn't really start to deteriorate until around 1788 or so. He seems to have been in firm control of his faculties during the American Revolution. The practical, political reason the Declaration of Independence was addressed to the King rather than Parliament is 1) an individual adversary always catches the imagination more than a faceless committee and 2) the Americans had some sympathizers in Parliament and didn't want to cut off the possibility of a political settlement by offending them.
I am not an expert but I gather a recent academic biography of George III argues that he wanted to be more conciliatory than his ministers would allow.
Because of the centrality and emphasis in Christian teaching on loving and that this is an outward activity aimed at increasing others happiness I question the validity of the personal pursuit of happiness - and hence the original question.
I also question the Biblical basis for the concept of “putting on your own face mask first” - just can’t think of anywhere this is taught in the Bible.
As someone who is often socially challenged - awkward even - as autistic people frequently are, I also feel unhelpfully attacked by words like "inadequacy" and "weakness" being attached to it, so would request you be very careful on that front.
Does the "removing the plank from your own eye" thing not suggest putting our own house in order so we can be useful to others?
Jesus himself sets this example, doing his darndest to maintain some sort of life/ministry balance (and of course we have to look at this from the point of view that he knew he had at most three years, not thirty, ahead of him). So we see him escaping the crowds to be alone and to pray--even escaping his disciples late at night or early in the morning. We see him at dinner parties and weddings, and I seriously doubt he monopolized the party with a sermon! We see him doing things like sitting alone beside a well to rest and sending his disciples off to do the shopping. Yes, a woman turned up who needed the Gospel anyway, but Jesus did not go out of his way to find a ministry opp to fill all his free time--he seems to be doing exactly the opposite fairly often. And he tells the disciples to "come aside with me and get some rest" when they get back from their preaching tours. Yes, that also gets derailed when a huge crowd turns up, but clearly he's making the effort.
So yes, caring for your own body and soul first so that you can meet the needs of others without breaking down--that's a biblical concept.
But if a person is telling me about a difficult time they are going through, this is not awkward for me. This is someone being real and raw, not someone playing social games (unless they are being manipulative with it, which can happen sometimes). So this kind of one-to-one interaction, when it's genuine, doesn't really involve social awkwardness. In fact, when I was in a workplace where a colleague's adult son died, I seemed to be the only colleague who was comfortable with her talking to me about it. The others (who weren't socially awkward at all - they had lots to say about all sorts of more superficial things, like fashion and celebrities) tried to change the subject and said behind her back that she wasn't getting over it properly, that she should have stopped talking about it by now (when it was only a year later). I just saw it that it isn't something she would just 'get over' and she needed to talk about it. She wasn't draining - I think she just didn't have much chance to talk to anyone about it in general and she needed to.
As I said above, it has to do with property rights in land. Locke claimed that property rights in land were created by labor--if you invested labor in cultivating land, you acquired a natural right of ownership. Jefferson didn't agree, saying (in later writings) that land ownership could only arise from social consensus--not from any natural right--and that societies were free to change that consensus at any time. For rhetorical effect, he needed a third term, and pursuit of happiness sounded good even if it didn't really mean much.
I think pursuing happiness is chasing an illusion. Happiness isn't a thing to be achieved, it's an epiphenomenon of other experiences, like interesting work and emotionally meaningful relationships. Pursuing happiness as a goal in itself is a surefire way of never finding it.
Would the original readers of the Declaration, particularly those to whom it was addressed, have understood that Jefferson was using the term differently from how Locke used it?
First, I’m sincerely sorry for any offence caused.
Second, are you saying that sometimes you feel socially awkward not knowing how to respond to someone? Or are you saying that you recognise you can be socially awkward sometimes? Your post seems to be saying the second. However my post referred to the first situation.
Even as someone who has had a TBI as well as being diagnosed (by a clinical psychologist) to have autism I have found responding to people who are hurting relatively simple - first you be quiet and listen and second you respond with empathy. My initial post as well as my last one was a complaint about neurotypical people or at least those who claim to be (like the colleagues fineline mentioned). I understand that understanding social situations is not always easy for others and my comments were not about those. My apologies again for any offence caused.
It raises a smile then I change the subject.
I tend to pursue comfort. Probably due to my sensory issues. If I'm comfortable I'm 'happy'.
Joy is another thing entirely. It comes unbidden in fleeting moments. I am thankful for those moments and remember them. (treasure them).
As they say, when you've met one Autistic person you've met one Autistic person.
I would identify with both of your social awkwardness descriptions above.
Listening is easy. "Responding with empathy" is very difficult. I have found, for example, that "I understand. A similar thing happened to me" is very much appreciated by some people while others feel devalued and that you've moved from caring about them to talking about yourself. How do you know what will be helpful to a particular person?
I like to say, "Still looking down at the grass and not up at the roots."
Always look.....
A saying of our grandparents. Still true
Thanks for that last comment Karl. I always look for commonalities when engaged in conversation, as a bonding kind of thing. It makes me more comfortable if I feel like there is a mutual understanding between me and another. I never thought of it as changing topics, but now that I think about it, I can see that it's true.
I question whether loving is exclusively an outward focused activity, and whether it is an activity aimed at increasing the happiness of others. I question, but I don't know if there is a valid answer.
On love, I reckon you can't really love another if you don't understand them, and understanding must begin with self-knowledge. Otherwise, you're too busy popping off your own reactions and triggers to focus on the other. So the process of expressing love necessarily involves the inner work of self-understanding.
That said, I really enjoyed listening to a priest give a sermon to school children a month or so ago because he made loving into small acts of kindness that the children could practice daily. Could it really be that simple? Could love be about greeting someone with a smile?
On the point concerning increasing happiness, my discomfort is harder to pin down. It might just be my discomfort with the idea of happiness itself.
Is love a state of being?
It's whatever people need it to be.
It's actions when it's something we're commanded to do because states of mind and emotions cannot be commanded.
It's an emotion or state of mind or attitude to others when we want it to be better than "mere kindness".
It feels unnecessarily overcomplicated to me.
It's sort of like faith; without works it is dead.