Today lets discuss why is Happiness important. I found this article on the web and find it very relevant.
Happiness is so important to us, both as individuals and as a world, primarily because happiness is really all there is. As human beings, although we possess cognitive abilities and are highly "thought" oriented, the quality of our lives is ultimately ENTIRELY determined by our emotions. For example, which life would you rather have; that of a very rich, attractive, successful, healthy, powerful person who despite all of those blessings is very unhappy or that of a very poor, unattractive, unsuccessful, unhealthy and powerless person who is nevertheless fortunate enough to be very happy?
Considering happiness within the framework of good and evil, or right and wrong, we find that what is evil or wrong is only undesirable because it diminishes the happiness of an individual or group, and that what is good and right is only so because it increases the happiness of and individual or group. In fact, British philosopher John Locke accurately defines goodness as that which creates happiness, and evil as that which creates unhappiness.
Happiness, which includes the pleasant emotions and moods that comprise it, is really the only aspect of our lives with any ULTIMATE value. Aristotle described it as "the highest good." Of what value is ANY good except that it facilitates the happiness, or greater happiness, of human beings and other life on our Planet? For the religious among us this would, of course, also include the happiness of God.
Of what value is ANYTHING except for its utility in facilitating happiness? A careful reflection reveals that the ONLY reason we do anything in life is to maintain or enhance our happiness and/or the happiness of others. Freud, with his Pleasure Principle, and other psychologists with similar hedonic principles, explained our basic and strongest motivation in life as the drive to experience pleasure and to avoid pain. Of course, as Freud pointed out with his Reality Principle, we would be unwise to indiscriminately seek pleasure at the expense of reason and experience. Many temporal pleasures will ultimately bring individuals, and/or those around them, greater pain. However, at times, enduring pain is a wise or necessary way to ensure greater pleasure and happiness.
Many of us are very concerned with ethics, knowledge, beauty, love, health, productivity, peace, justice and prosperity, often forgetting that these blessings are simply and ultimately means of facilitating happiness. Nevertheless, over the last several millennia we have been culturally conditioned to prize these blessing and work very hard to maintain and enhance them. The fact that as a world our happiness level is under 65 percent, however, suggests that our conventional strategies for achieving happiness are hardly effective.
Jackson
Break Free ... Be Happy ...
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