It doesn’t take a genius to realize that in the end, all of the things we aim for are ways to increase our happiness and that happiness is our ultimate goal as living, breathing human beings.
It does take a bit of a genius though to achieve a high and sustainable level of happiness. Coaching others, I’ve realized that many people seriously lack in happiness because they have a bad understanding of what happiness is and what actually makes us humans in general happy. So, I’m gonna tell you.
The Two Sides of Happiness
One of probably the best things psychologists have done lately is to deconstruct happiness. Their conclusion, which I support wholeheartedly, is that although happiness has many sides to it, there are two basic ingredients that compose it.
The first ingredient is pleasure. It’s the basic, positive emotional state you get when you do certain kind of activities. We sometimes call these activities our passions. Examples of passions include: reading, writing, dancing, painting, organizing, evaluating, solving problems, talking, listening and so on.
The second ingredient is fulfillment. This is the more complex positive emotion you get when you look back at the things you have done and you find that those things are meaningful to you, because they’re aligned with your values.
Some people – such as myself – find fulfillment in helping others develop, some in making others feel happy, some in building a thing and some in creating a piece of art or poetry. Generally, we feel fulfilled when we have a contribution to something larger than ourselves.
Here Comes the Problem
In my experience the number one way people sabotage their happiness is this: going for one of the two ingredients above, while ignoring the other. Thus, two types of people are shaped, for which I have coined up names:
1. The party person. This is the person who knows how to have fun but not how to get fulfillment. Party persons do the things they’re passionate about; they typically have a lot of hobbies and they party a lot (therefore the name). However, they often end up reflecting upon their lives and feeling unfulfilled because something is missing.
2. The spiritual person. This is the person who is aware (mostly intuitively) of the importance of contribution and a higher purpose. Spiritual persons seek a higher plain of living and they stick to their key values. However, in their strict spiritual journey, they often work themselves like a mule and they forget to have some fun.
Of course, there is also a third type of people who don’t go after pleasure or fulfillment and they pretty much gave up on life, but I don’t even want to talk about them.
The Complete Life
By this point you probably already know where I’m going: you can only have a truly happy life if you:
- Acknowledge both sides of happiness, pleasure and fulfillment, and
- You seek to balance them out in your life.
Me, I love public speaking. When I’m doing a speech and I’m in front all those people dissecting a topic I’m knowledgeable about (such as people skills), I feel very good. At the same time, after a speech, I have this perception of having helped those people in the audience open new doors in their lives and I also feel fulfilled.
It is the mix of pleasure and fulfillment that’s key. I believe that what you want to do is combine activities that give you pleasure with activities that give you fulfillment every day. Better yet, find activities that give you both and spend as much time as possible doing those kinds of activities.
Get out there and wisely make the best of it. If life is worth living, life is worth living right.
Image courtesy of BoSquidley
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Eduard what I love about this is that you make a point and then take a confident stance on it. I like people who do that! For me happiness is about allowing yourself to be happy. It’s not a ‘when I..’ type thing or ‘if’ kind of thinking but a ‘here now’ awareness. Happiness is an inside job and when we allow ourselves to find happiness inside for something in our current everyday life it simply spreads. Keep up the confident psoting it’s great to see.
Thanks John,
There is this saying in REBT that most people make themselves miserable through their faulty thinking. Soooo true!
This is sumthing I’ve struggled with in the past. I used to be very serious spiritual person but I ended up very tired and lost energy because I didn’t have fun in the process – I took life too seriously and my biology went ahead and turned up the volume, and told me – DUDE you need some pleasure in your life.
Unfortunately when I heard that cry, I chased after pleasure and ignored spirituality. I ended up very depressed because I focused solely on pleasure… especially carnal pleasure. Life is sooo freaking tough.
I bounced from one side to the other once or twice, now my life is about taking the best of both worlds and putting it together. It’s an entire new level.
There is the forth person who just wants contentment. And No, It’s not the same thing as happiness.
I just want to be content.
Content: significance or profundity; meaning (according to the dictionary). That’s basically the same as fulfillment.
Eduard, you make such a wonderful point in this post. I think a lot of people fall into the trap of seeking fulfillment through pleasure, without truly knowing the difference. Oftentimes, the things that bring us pleasure will not carry that sense of fulfillment. Great job shining light on the importance of both.
Hell yeah! We tend to think that what gives us pleasure will also give us fulfillment and it’s often not the case. That’s why I believe it’s crucial to grasp the different sides of happiness and how they are related.
Interesting. I don’t think I ever thought about it quite this way. For me, I’ve always found pleasure and fulfillment intertwined. Food for thought, I suppose. I can definitely see how easy it would be to separate them.
Hey Jen,
I think this probably means they are intertwined in your life, which is great because it simplifies things for you. In my experience, they’re different aspects for many people.
Great post Ed 🙂
I especially like how you phrased the terms “party / spiritual person”, because I see myself as someone who went from spiritual over party, again to spiritual and is now learning to find the middle 🙂
Keep it up, you actually ARE helping others and that is a very respectable thing to do!
Phil
If you have some spare time, use it wisely and check out my blog, where I give a bit of motivation to you every day 🙂
Thanks Phil,
I bounced between those two once or twice as well. That middle ground can be hard to find and stay on. Sometimes it feels like you’re an acrobat on a wire.
Will do.