What do you need to have to be happy? Do you need a lot of money to be happy? Is a person happy when he has money?
For most of us, it is necessary to find a lover, get married, own a car and a house in order to be happy. The majority think that happiness is a goal to be reached. Some of us see happiness as a bird of fortune to land on; if one has a chance, one is happy; otherwise unhappy.
So, what is your understanding of happiness? Do you also define happiness as a goal to be reached? Let me first try to explain what does not bring happiness. Happiness has nothing to do with having a lot of money, although it may seem counterintuitive to most people. Similarly, being successful or having a reputation does not make one happy.
The main thing is to have a decent living income. It is not possible for a person who is crawling out of money to be happy. If he does not have enough money, one will certainly be unhappy. But having money above an income that will “live humanely” does not bring happiness. A lot of money provides a very comfortable life, but it does not make people happy.
The notion that money does not bring happiness is known as the “Easterlin Paradox”. According to Easterlin’s research in the United States, Japan, and England in the early 1970s, happiness levels did not increase as families’ income increased.
Similar results were obtained in a study of US lottery winners. The happiness of the lucky people who won the lottery lasted an average of one year.
Happiness in ancient Greece meant being moral and living a virtuous life. According to Aristotle, “Happiness is possible only by having a virtuous and perfect character. A person can be happy only if he lives his whole life in a noble way.”
Plato, on the other hand, says that happiness will be achieved with the harmony of mind, desires and spirit. This understanding of happiness, which is wanted to be explained with the harmony of “soul-mind-body”, which has risen again with the “New age” movement, is based on Plato’s teaching.
I think Epicurus gave the best definition of happiness. To be happy one needs three things: “Friendship, Freedom and Thinking.”
Epicurus’ way of finding happiness is very simple. Epicurus enjoys eating ordinary but delicious food and chatting with his friends, whom he meets in the garden of his house. According to Epicurus, a person must think and share his ideas with his friends in order to live a meaningful life. To do all this, he must be free. (This is why Epicurus and his friends are known as the “Garden philosophers”.)
As Epicurus said, we need freedom to be happy. A person who is not free cannot be happy. We need friends. We need to share a table with friends and chat with them. And of course, we need to think about life and make sense of it.
To be truly happy, “freedom, friendliness and the ability to think” is enough. We don’t need anyone or anything to be happy. Happiness is achieved with free things in life. Happiness; It is a feeling experienced in relationships of love and compassion. Human; He becomes happy when he grows love and compassion in himself.
Anyone who’s been through enough trouble knows that you don’t have to be rich, successful, or famous to be happy. To me, happiness is something that is learned. If we are healthy and have a decent income, we can all be happy.
Happiness is how we perceive the situations we are in; It is what and how we prefer to convey to our inner world from our experiences. (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes this idea in his book “Flow”.)
Happiness is only our choice.
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