John Lennon famously said, “When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” This quote is accepted as profound and achieving happiness is accepted as the key to life — just as Mama Lennon insisted upon. While viewing life as an endless quest for happiness is a positive thought, I believe it is inaccurate in that people are not intrinsically wired to live for happiness alone. In fact, I think that people are programmed to live a life that is fulfilling and the truth is that — while fulfillment is derived differently for each individual — it is not achieved simply through happiness. On the contrary, I believe that happiness is a result of fulfillment, rather than the other way around.
Abraham Maslow, a 20th century psychologist famous for his hierarchy of needs, addresses the question about what people truly strive for. “Human life will never be understood unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence (and other ways of phrasing the striving “upward”) must by now, be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal human tendency …” Surveying the different things that keep people motivated pinpoints the concept that ambition is the driving force leading to a fulfilling lifestyle. One thing that is interesting is what each person strives to be ambitious about.
Relating to the hierarchy of needs, we can say that a person whose purpose is to survive can go to bed each night with contentment, knowing that they achieved their goal. However, if a person’s purpose is to make more money than their billionaire neighbor and they fall short, they will go to bed feeling unfulfilled. Personally, I do not live each day with the mindset that my own survival is a foremost goal because it is not a question that I will have the necessities to survive. Since this is not something preoccupying my brain, I have to seek out other things to create purpose for myself.
It is for this reason that it is impossible to compare individuals, communities, eras, lifestyles, etc. or establish what is better or what is worse.
In a 1973 interview, Kurt Vonnegut stated “Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.” Conversely, Robert Pirsig, author of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Management” writes, “... the schoolbook pictures of primitive man sometimes omit some of the detriment of his primitive life – the pain, the disease, famine, the hard labor needed just to stay alive. From that agony of bare existence to modern life can be soberly described only as upward progress, and the sole agent for this progress is quite clearly reason itself.”
Personally, I can understand the philosophy of both men, but argue that neither are right in that it is impossible to compare modern day life with that of any other era. The struggles of primitive communities cannot be ignored or promoted more than those of today nor can either be simplified into “utopias.” In truth, if it were possible to contrast the two, I believe we would find them to be equal because they both consist of individuals striving to achieve their respective purposes — regardless of how vastly different those purposes may be.
This claim comes from the idea that, while a caveman would exist to survive, he would not necessarily be happier in a modern day society where he could do so easily. Rather, the man would find himself seeking new challenges through which to fulfill himself. It is human nature to search for areas of improvement in order to create purpose. This is the reason that people will find themselves consumed by various causes or even creating problems for themselves. I think it is impossible to say that people exist to find happiness because I believe that it is within human nature to seek out the bad. This is not because people wish to sabotage their happiness with problems, but because they will seek a purpose that will eventually lead to fulfillment and, subsequently, a genuine happiness that results from achievement.
You may be saying to yourself “But wait, I’m a billionaire with a perfect life, what can I do to achieve fulfillment?” Well, with all this in mind, I believe that the best way to ensure that people are fulfilled is to provide them with opportunities. People may be happy if they are helped, but they will be fulfilled if they are able to help themselves. This goes along with the proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” which relates to how we can provide each other — not with temporary happiness — but with a lifetime of fulfillment. That said, all you billionaires out there with rock star good looks and well-behaved kids CAN still pursue purpose by helping others to find theirs!
