The Philosophical Basis of Happiness

Ron Henson
Humanities 620

Happiness comes from within and happiness comes from experiences we have with people we love. For thousands of years philosophers were asking about happiness and talking about happiness, but with no scientific data. It has only been within the last 30 or 40 years that we have collected scientific data, rigorous data, measured happiness and saw what leads to happiness. In happiness research, they ask people how happy they are on a 1 to 10 scale. Ed Diener has gathered data on nearly a quarter of a million people and has found that people who are happy have better health, better relationships, better careers and better just about everything. The happiest people surround themselves with family and friends, don’t care about keeping up with the Joneses, lose themselves in daily activities and forgive easily.

Two years ago there was a buzz around Hollywood because of a film called “the Secret.” In it, they said that your thoughts determine your destiny. If you had positive thoughts, you would attract positive things into your life. Conversely, if you had negative thoughts, you would attract negative things into your life. “The Secret” is just one example of a self-help program. Norman Vincent Peale is a well-known promoter of the Power of Positive Thinking, which is not only the title of a book but also a philosophy of living that says that what you can conceive and believe you can achieve. He was a very influential man in his time and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest honor bestowed upon a civilian in the United States. As a minister, his mantle passed to Dr. Robert Schuller who founded the Crystal Cathedral in Orange County and approached spreading the message of positive thinking with evangelistic zeal building a multimillion-dollar empire including The Hour of Power television show was in its time the most widely watched hour-long church service in the world. The precepts of The Secret are nothing new.

Last year Americans spent about 10 billion dollars on self-help. The founder of Hay House claims to have cured herself of cancer. Her books have sold over 35,000,000 copies, making her one of the best-selling authors of all time. Hay believes that thoughts cause all problems. She teaches that the negative thoughts we think can make us sick. She says she doesn’t believe in science. She believes in her “inner ding.” Some hard scientist would look at that and reply, “She’s dingy all right” but research is supporting her conclusions.

Social support is a key factor in becoming a resilient individual. We cannot do it alone. You need other people. Everybody needs a way of communicating with other people to establish friendships that are supportive and to establish relationships that provide a guidepost as you get through the tough times. Highly resilient people have a strong religious or moral belief, strong role models, and a strong streak of optimism. You learn resilience by falling down and getting back up again. Adaptation is something that the mind does when there’s nothing else it can do. We adapt to misfortunes when we know we can’t change them, but when we stand a fighting chance, we fight. That’s why we struggle so much with temporary misfortunes.

Being unemployed makes us unhappy, but the reasons aren’t entirely financial. When a person asks us who we are, we often tell them what we do because work is a part of our identity. That’s why when we lose our jobs, we lose a part of ourselves. The same is true of illness. Being sick makes us unhappy, but the reasons are not entirely medical or even physical. Illness like unemployment can tear a hole in our identities and leave us wondering who we really are.

Self-help appears to be a simple and inexpensive alternative to therapy or counseling. Over the last 20 years psychology professor John Norcroft has engaged in a systematic study of the self-help industry. He says that we should cheer the proliferation of the self-help industry. “Approximately 75% of those who successfully changed a behavior or relationship did so on their own with no professional treatment. There are limitations to self-help. Over 95% of all self-help books are published with no scientific research attesting to their effectiveness or safety and we estimate that nearly 99% of Internet self-help sites launch with no scientific research attesting to their “value.” Self-help offers quick and easy solutions to complicated problems. One of the most popular self-help gurus is Dr. Phil, who says that he’s not trying to keep people away from therapy but giving them a wake up call.

One of the more effective self-help groups is Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), which is a free, peer-based support group offering meetings across the country and virtual meetings online. Researchers have found that AA is very effective, and one thing to which that success is attributed is social support or what AA people call “fellowship.” Besides going to meetings, it encourages its members to find opportunities for community service such as setting up for meetings, cleaning up after the meetings and sponsoring other alcoholics. One finding from the research is that people who “sponsor” others have a greater chance of success in the program because by helping others with their addiction, they are helping themselves. There are twelve steps in AA that it encourages its members to follow. It starts with admission of powerlessness over their addiction and continues with such principles as turning to a “higher power” for help and guidance, taking a personal moral inventory, asking the higher power to remove defects of character, listing people that were harmed by an individual’s addiction, making amends to those one has harmed, accepting personal responsibility for any wrongs you may have done, continuing to take a personal moral inventory and to improve your conscious contact with a higher power and finally taking the message of AA to alcoholics who are still suffering. The theme goes back to the idea that by helping others, you’re helping yourself.

After mulling over some research on happiness, reading samples of the positive thinking and self-help literature, considering my own career choices and how fulfilling it is to participate in volunteer work, one of the greatest sources of happiness for myself is investing in others. Teaching is not something that people go into for the money. For myself and other colleagues, the reward of teaching is seeing your students excel. The monetary compensation is secondary to the joy of watching your students develop and grow, especially when one follows their career and sees measurable signs of success.

It wasn’t at all surprising to find that research on happiness affirms the notions that happiness is contagious, social support can reinforce happiness and maintaining a positive mental attitude.