Courting Cats, Pursuing Happiness

The hedonic paradox

Photo by Martha du Ploy on Unsplash

Happiness is like a cat. If you try to coax it, it will never come to you. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.

So said William Bennett. So have said many people, in different ways, over the ages. Philosophers talk about the “hedonic paradox,” the fact that pursuing happiness can make it harder to attain.  Victor Frankl, having survived Auschwitz, makes the case gravely: “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue,” from dedication to a cause greater than oneself.

Popular culture disagrees. The New York Times, on New Year’s day, featured a “7-Day Happiness Challenge:” simple steps for a joyful, more connected 2024. The Times is not alone; the media are  filled with suggestions about how to be happy. California’s legislature has established a Committee on Happiness and Public Policy Outcomes. A World Happiness Report finds the United States falling behind: We’re only the 23^rd happiest. A Nobel laureate proved money buys happiness.

Who’s right? That depends in part on how we define happiness.

Social Science and Happiness

Social scientists define happiness as a subjective state – “we know it when we feel it” – that can be measured. Subjects are asked a set of questions like these:  Do you usually get what you want? Would you call your life a good one? How often do you feel happy? And so on. Researchers then look for habits, circumstances, and attitudes that correlate with those feelings.

Self-help literature picks out useful specifics to share:

• Make a short phone call every day

• Engage in small talk with strangers

• Improve your time-management skills

• Practice breathing exercises for times of stress

My favorite comes from the study of toddlers:

• “Sleep Well, Take Risks, Squish the Peas”

These are practical, appealing, suggestions. I could endorse any of them. I’m more interested, though, in general findings. Different scientists organize their results differently, but almost all point to

• positive relationships, with friends, family, and colleagues

• attitudes toward oneself – compassion, self-understanding, self-care.

• pleasure, for its own sake but also because it relaxes and energizes us for other pursuits.

• meaningful activities, for the fulfillment they bring

Some of these guidelines focus inward, on oneself; others focus outward; some meld the two. Those that focus on oneself can be deliberately chosen, and I’ll trust that they often increase happiness. To that extent, then, happiness is not an aloof cat. (More like a warm puppy?)

It’s the elements that focus outward that create the paradox. Friends, for instance, care about one another. If the ultimate purpose of the friendship is to enrich one’s own life, is it really friendship? When people choose to become parents, their first intention is to enrich their own lives. But raising children requires making the child’s welfare central; making one’s own happiness the measure of each day would be disastrous. (A recent book on parenting is called: All Joy No Fun.)

The same paradox arises for meaningful engagement. Frankl considered it essential, and most researchers consider it important, for a happy life. Feeding the hungry, struggling to understand something, protecting forests, worshipping God: Dedication to something larger takes many forms. But choosing one in order to become happy is not a commitment beyond myself. It’s just another way of taking care of myself.

Constantly asking whether a friendship, or a commitment, makes one happy keeps our focus on ourselves. Real commitments require focusing outward. It’s obviously important to notice if a friendship or a commitment is dragging one down. Self-awareness, though, is different from self-absorption. Concern for oneself needs to be a guardrail rather than a defining goal.

Constantly asking whether something makes us happy keeps our focus on ourselves.

Some ways of pursuing happiness, then, are self-defeating. The hedonic paradox with which I began is partially, but importantly, true. That’s one reason I’m unsettled by the current fascination with happiness.

But there’s another reason. I’d prefer a world in which people take care of themselves, nourish their minds, bodies, and souls, but at the same time genuinely care about other things and other people; about the relief of suffering, or the pursuit of knowledge, or an immersion in making.

Current recipes for happiness encourage constant self-centered attention. “Am I happy yet?” That bothers me not just because it’s self-defeating, but also because it’s morally half-empty. Self-care is important and basic. But we should also care about what is beyond ourselves, not in order to make ourselves happy, but because we’re not the only thing that matters.

We are not all that matters. The world outside us matters.

I’m not really worried about happiness being elusive. I am worried about the pursuit of happiness leading to narcissism.