What is True Happiness?

We have goals and desires, and we sometimes believe that when we achieve them we will be happier forever. We may think, for example, that when we find someone we love we will be happy, or if we buy a house we will be happy. These, when achieved, can only give us temporary happiness, and therefore it does not stay with us.

Money, for example, is linked to happiness for most people, and we tend to think that when we make more money we will be happy. Over the years, I have watched the advertising industry and how it preys on the knowledge that we all want to be happy.

For example, they advertise products, especially for women, such as face creams, with the emphasis that if we buy them we will look younger. After a short time they will advertise a new, better product.

This is the moment we realise that the first product failed to meet our needs and therefore failed to give us long-lasting happiness. We may then switch to buying the new product, believing that it will give us happiness, and so the cycle repeats.

The Dalai Lama, author and spiritual guru, in his book The Art of Happiness (published by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK) says that “we have to train the mind by bringing about a certain inner discipline where we can undergo transformation of our attitude and our entire outlook and approach to living.”

He says that one begins by identifying those factors which lead to happiness and those factors which lead to suffering, and then eliminating those factors which lead to suffering and cultivating those which lead to happiness.

I have often asked myself: at what point can one feel happy all the time? And what is true happiness?

Then it hit me that this is what most people want to achieve: to be happy. According to a Harvard study on happiness by psychiatrist Robert Waldinger and his team, the lives of 724 men were tracked from a young age through their teenage years and adulthood, for 75 years, asking about their health, work and personal lives.

The lessons learned from their lives were that good relationships keep us happier and healthier, and that loneliness kills. According to the results of the research, social connection is good for us, and people who are socially connected to family, friends and community are happier, physically healthier and live longer than those who are less connected.

Loneliness, on the other hand, tends to be toxic, and therefore people who are more isolated are likely to be less happy and are likely to have a decline in health in midlife.