I wrote yesterday about what I see as the mistaken notion of making a false dichotomy between a happy life vs. a meaningful and holy life. Are we to assume that if we’re fulfilling a higher purpose we’ll therefore be miserable? That idea makes no sense.
There was a section somewhere in one of Gretchen Rubin’s books, I knew, about this whole idea of whether or not it was a good idea to deliberately pursue happiness.
I flipped through The Happiness Project yesterday but didn’t find it, so I took a look today in Happier at Home, and here it is:
“I encountered a familiar and influential line of argument: that happiness isn’t a goal that can be directly pursued, but rather is the indirect consequence of a life well lived.”
She goes on to quote several eminent writers who said that very thing, then says:
But—as audacious as it may be to contradict such venerable figures—I heartily disagree. Whenever anyone raised this argument with me, I argued back. “How do you directly pursue happiness,” I’d ask, “that’s different from pursuing it indirectly?”
One person responded, “I never strive directly for happiness. Instead, I seek accomplishment and meaning, and that gives me satisfaction. Or, in a pinch, really vigorous exercise.”
“Yes!” I answered. “Those are exactly the kind of activities that would be undertaken by a person aiming directly at happiness.”
Another person argued. “Leading a pleasure-driven, instant-gratification, consumerist life doesn’t build happiness.”
“Right!” I said. “But does anyone seriously argue that leading a life of constant indulgence leads to happiness?” True, some people choose to live that way, but not because they’ve mindfully decided that it’s the path to enduring happiness. (p. 185 of the 2012 hardback edition of Happier at Home)
So what does all this have to do with Nero, you may ask? It’s always interesting to me how a subject I’ve been thinking about will pop up all over the place. So last night I had told myself that I could watch the PBS program Secrets of the Dead at 9:00. That seems like a reasonable time to knock off work, doesn’t it? The series centers around archaeological discoveries, and this particular program was titled “Nero’s Sunken City,” about the excavations at Baiae, the resort Nero built near Naples in order to get away from the squalor and crowds of Rome. He would certainly fit into the description above of someone who chose to live a ”pleasure-driven, instant-gratification, consumerist life.” But you know what thought struck me as I was watching the program? ‘How bored he must have been!’ Sure, I bet it was fun to draw up the plans for the incredible villas and other buildings and to watch them being built, but he had to know, because in spite of himself he was, after all, human, that there was no real purpose to what he was doing beyond his own pleasure. No wonder he had to keep building new villas and holding orgies! I wonder what he thought every morning when he woke up (probably with a hangover)? ‘What on earth am I going to do today?’ would be my guess. And then, like Naboth in the Old Testament, he got all hot and bothered about a couple of villas that other people owned, and in at least one instance he may have committed murder to get what he wanted. In the end, as we all know, he ended up committing suicide.
Not a great advertisement for a devotion to pleasure, is it? Here’s the thing, though: as Gretchen says, and as I say, and as anyone who really thinks about it would say: the pursuit of happiness lies in the pursuit of the worthwhile life. As she puts it (still on this same page): “Happiness is a goal and a by-product.” You get a two-fer. So I can ask myself (on a purely mundane level), ‘Will it really make me happy to buy that bag of M&M’s and then scarf them all down in the car?” There will be a fleeting pleasure, of course, that will last just as long as it takes the candy to disappear. Then will come the self-recrimination and the sick feeling I get from a sugar rush. Then will come the re-started resolutions. How much easier and more pleasant it will be if I just walk away from the candy display? It’s very helpful for me to keep asking myself the happiness question “How will I feel about this later?’
So right now, as I write this, it’s about 2:00 PM. I need to get the beef stew put together for tonight’s dinner, and I’ve planned to take pictures of it to replace the icky one that I originally posted with the recipe back awhile ago. I don’t have to do it; nobody’s making me. But I want to do it. One of my goals with my website is to produce an e-cookbook with helpful recipes and tips for entertaining. Getting up and getting started on this particular project today is a step toward that goal. And yes, doing it will make me happy.
Well, I’d better get busy. Assuming that it all comes out okay, that post should be up tomorrow over on the hospitality blog. Will I look back on the net few hours with happiness? Humanly speaking, it’s up to me.