Wrestling with the Word "Happiness"

Most people of the modern world take no issue with the word "happiness." Their associations are largely positive. Accordingly most people want to be happy, appear happy, and share their happy experience with their peers.

But then there are those whose emotions become stirred up almost automatically when confronted with the word, as if it was a red flag only they can see and against which the rest of us must be warned. Negative connotations of happiness are manifold, such as it being a chase, an empty, impossible dream, a sign of decadence and of a spiritual void.

Ironically, I agree with most of the warning labels that this group intents to attach to the word "happiness." I concur that many chase their own tails. I agree that many have unrealistic expectations about positive emotions, expectations manufactured by big business, enhancing greediness for pleasure, comfort, and security. And yet.

I wrote a book on happiness. I have claimed the word "happiness" for a higher purpose. I have made the word my own, or better, made it that which most thinkers intended it to be. After analyzing hundreds of explications about happiness, I have come to understand that "happiness" more often than not stands for the experience of being alive. And who in his right mind does not want that?

Fighting happiness as a worthy goal and/or path is mostly based on a semantic problem, a problem I hope to help overcome.

Is Happiness Possible in our Broken Reality?

A new book about the benefits of playing computer games makes the claim that reality is broken, explaining why we seek the unbroken virtual reality of games. This I learned recently on the radio. My first reaction was confusion. Why would anybody describe our reality as broken? It did not take me long to back-track my sense of reality when I am interrupted, distracted, obstracted, and bombarded with stimuli of a world that wants my attention. Sometimes there seems no end to the demands on me. My kids want my love; business wants my money; friends my time; schools my upmost devotion...

But is my reality broken? At best I could say that we humans are making it hard on ourselves to maintain unbroken attention. This, however, has been a long-standing problem of Homo Sapiens. In one way or the other we are standing in our own way to experience peace, our participation in this one world, our happiness.

I don't think we should blame modern times for our experience of reality. I don't think we find any answers in games or in any other escape. Living is not easy, but it is not because reality is broken, but because we dissect reality with our perception and our anxiety. Reality has always been just one interconnected whole. If we paid attention to our reality, it would not appear broken. Happiness is possible when we come from inner tranquility, regardless of outer turmoil.