In some cultures, parents typically say that they just want their kids to “be happy”; that this is their role as parents. And "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"is a well-known phrase from the US Declaration of Independence that identifies happiness as a fundamental good that (it says) governments are created to protect. Happiness has also recently had a lot of attention in academic circles too; not least as the basis of certain strands of economic theory, foundational to which is the belief that we act to maximise happiness/utility.
But, looking at human behaviour - our own and that of the people around us - it’s hard to cling onto a belief that people generally do attempt to maximise their happiness. We all do things we know are not likely to make us happy, some things that actively make us unhappy, and a quick look at the newspapers shows that for some, this can extend to self-destructive behaviour that seems designed to make ourselves miserable.
As we think about guiding our students toward what we hope is a happy life, we can perhaps identify two elements:
Do we know what will make us happy?
Do we have the discipline and determination (self-imposed or externally demanded) to act in the ways that we think will make us happy?
These are both really interesting questions for parents and educators. Society tends, I think, to focus far more on the second one. How to get ahead, how to succeed, how to defer gratification; all these are focussed on acting in ways that will (supposedly) lead to happiness. In school we also spend time on the first question; examining our values; looking at what matters to us.
You might think that if we could get these two matters right, whatever the balance between them, then we would be on to a good thing. If we knew what would make us happy and could take steps to achieve those things, then surely we are onto a very good thing?
Alas, such a linear approach might not be the whole answer. A less often addressed question is whether or not we should even be focussed on happiness as a goal in the first place. Philosophers have (of course!) explored this somewhat counter-intuitive possibility over the years. Well before the Matrix, Robert Nozick despised the imaginary "experience machine" which would "stimulate your brain” so you were supremely happy; John Stuart Mill asked, in what was meant to be a rhetorical question, whether it is better to be an unhappy Socrates or a happy pig. While I tend to a porcine response on that one, there are nevertheless serious concerns about happiness as a goal.
Would you ever consciously choose a path that you thought would make you less happy? And if you did, might that sometimes be the right choice? The answers to both these might seem to be obviously no, but psychologist George Loewenstein mentions how he responds to his economics PhD students who are trying to decide whether to have children but who are disturbed by the research that shows that people with children tend to become less happy, on average (for example, Twenge et al (2003) found that parents had significantly lower marital satisfaction than nonparents).
How many people, knowing in advance that by having children they would be less happy, would go ahead? If the stresses and strains of parenting are not outweighed by the joys, as the evidence suggests they are not, might a wise choice be to avoid having children in the first place?
Even to ask the question seems odd (even vaguely offensive to parents), showing that happiness cannot be the only thing we value. And of course, we know that couples with children often find more meaning in life - but Loewenstein argues that it's we should avoid our natural tendency to simply take a balance of the good and the bad. Taking a very different and rather interesting approach; he argues that maximising happiness is utterly the wrong approach. he argues that we can talk about the trials and tribulations, lifelong responsibilities and burdens and also the "joy of the newborn, or watching an older child take care of the younger, or witnessing the first time they walk, talk, ride a bike, and so on” but that these are not opposites to be weighed up against each other in some cosmic balance.
To look at the average is to miss the point; we need to look at “the point of being alive is to be more alive” - to maximise the breadth of experience. In this sense, both sides of the balance count positively. Looking at average happiness issues the point - in fact in terms of children, the feeling of caring deeply about someone outside of yourself provides “the liberation of not being only obsessed with your own happiness”. Freedom from self - hardly a popular idea in this era of self-gratification, but surely there is wisdom here.
This idea of valuing a range of experiences, of which happiness is one, might allow us to relax a little more. Of course, there are some appalling experiences that are unequivocally bad and certainly to be avoided; no disagreement there. But to see the vicissitudes of fortune, and the inevitable ups and downs of life as a feature, not a bug of life, is surely liberating. We take that approach with our students, all the time. I was speaking with one about his Extended Essay (‘EE’ - a 4000 word independently undertaken research project). It’s in his area of interest, and what he hopes to study at College and for a career - musical techniques in video game and film music. He’s made great progress, and I asked him if he was enjoying it. He smiled, and said well, it’s frustrating at times, and writing essays is not exactly enjoyable. I asked if doing it made him happy; he smiled and said no, not really. But when I asked if he wished he hadn’t had to do it, he wouldn’t commit, and simply shrugged. Similar considerations apply to many, many areas at school. We should not be, about happiness, though it's a welcoem by-product from time to time.
This is a different point to simply deferring gratification (which still means an overall accounting over time); it’s about accepting the value of ‘unhappy’ experiences. So from the sublime (parenthood) to the mundane (essay writing); we should not exclusively measure our experiences by the extent to which they make us happy, either in the immediate, or even in the long-term. That may be a bit of a foreign notion, but really it's old news. In the earyl seventeenth century J S Mill wrote “Suppose that all your objects in life were realised; that all institutions and opinions you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" and suggests that a moment's reflection shows that the answer is unambiguously ‘no’. His reaction was one of dismay: “my heart sank within me and the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down.” But in fact, the dilemma is easily solved by simply adopting a richer approach to life than the pursuit of happiness.
Reference
Baumeister, R. F. (1991). Meanings of life. New York : Guilford.
Bloom, P. (2011) What Becoming a Parent Really Does to Your Happiness The Atlantic.
Karlsson, N., Lowenstein, G. and McCafferty, J. (2004), 'The Economics of Meaning', Nordic Journal of Political Economy. 30(1), 61-75.
Lowenstein, G. (2007). Exotic Preferences. Blackwell: Oxford.
Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, State and Utopia. Blackwell: Oxford.
Twenge, J.M., Campbell, W.K. and Foster, C.A. (2003), Parenthood and Marital Satisfaction: A Meta-Analytic Review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65: 574-583.
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