Happiness and the meaning of life

Happiness is one of the most important values ​​of modern man, but this only says that we live in a consumer society. Happiness is about receiving. Do you know about it?

One of the wonderful exercises in the trainings of the synthon program is the gift of pictures of happiness and pictures of love to each other. Participants usually do not immediately understand what the difference is between them.

.. You leave the dark entrance, and the sun is shining outside, the buds are swelling, and the smell of spring is in the air.

… Or — you are lying on a sandy beach, you hear the sound of the sea, and a pleasant, slightly cool breeze blows your skin …

The question is — are these pictures about happiness or about love?

And if you are waiting for your loved one, prepare his favorite dish for him and set the table so that he understands that this evening is dedicated to him: is it only about happiness and or is it also about love?

Happiness is the joy of receiving; love is the joy of giving. Getting for yourself is understandable, but thinking about something else and giving yours to someone else is more difficult, which is why everyone wants happiness, but not everyone understands the value of love.

there should be a “why”, even most adults have not heard.

The meaning of life is that for which a person lives his individual life, this is the answer to the question “Why am I living?”. Are there many of us who in their right mind are asking this question? A vision of the meaning of life is a vision of perspective, a vision of the future, for which life is worth living. If happiness is enough to feel, then you need to think about the meaning of life. Well, do we have many people who are inclined to think? If people are not specifically taught this, few people think about the future. Moreover, the wave of psychological literature today teaches to live with feelings, not with your head, and live only “here and now”, without thinking about any future … As a result, such educated people no longer want to think about any “meaning of life”, and the theme of the meaning of life seems to excite only neurotics, for whom life still does not work out in any way …

Happiness and the meaning of life are quite different things. A person can have happiness in life, but not have meaning in life. And vice versa — there is meaning, but there is no happiness.

A person can be situationally happy (he had a good night’s sleep, ate, had a good swim, or had a delicious indulgence), but at the same time live without the meaning of life, not have the joy of the meaning of life. The other at this time is in discomfort and tension, but he sees what all this is for — and wakes up every new day with joy, because he knows why he lives. “He who knows the Why will endure any How,” wrote Nietzsche.

If life is likened to a route, then the meaning of life is one of its directions, and happiness is one of the ways to move along this route. Someone in his life chooses not the meaning of life as a direction at all, but other values ​​- entertainment or prosperity, health or acute experiences … A large number of our fellow citizens do not bother with the direction of their life at all, considering the satisfaction of their live happily, they can make happiness the meaning of their lives …

At the same time, happiness in itself is not the goal and meaning of life. More precisely, it may or may not appear: it all depends on the type of personality, views and motives of a person. If all your happiness is to tear off the wallpaper and put your shoes in a row, it seems that such happiness is unworthy of an adult.

For an Orthodox person, happiness as the enjoyment of the joys of the modern world is not the meaning of life, but a diabolical temptation. The meaning of his life is the approach to God, the salvation of the soul. It can be said that the happiness of an Orthodox person lies in serving God, but reflections on happiness, in principle, are not characteristic of Orthodoxy. At the same time, it is important to remember that for any Christian, despondency is one of the worst sins.

For an active person, happiness is a resource and a tool. Happiness helps an active person when it becomes a familiar background and source of energy. Happiness gets in the way when it distracts from business.

Academician Lyubishchev, summing up the results of the year, once wrote: “I did little this year. Was happy». Behind these words one hears either meditation or sadness.

For a process worker, happiness can be the goal and meaning of life, these are his values. The result is more important for the result, and experiences and happiness are second. See Happiness and Personality Types

Napoleon, looking back at his life, counted only four happy days in it. So what? He needed France, he wanted to give France freedom, reasonable laws, an efficient economy — and this was more important to him than his personal experiences. Big people don’t pay too much attention to their emotions. And the results are worth paying attention to. This is important to them.

In the synthon approach, happiness is not a goal, but only a way of life for a reasonable person. This is the natural background of life, which does not come to us (when approaching goals), but which we ourselves create with simple keys and mechanisms. We do it, or we don’t. And sometimes you don’t need to do this at all, if no one promises you complete and absolute happiness in the positive of a real, right life, you will often experience both deficit and shortage. You will definitely feel it. When you absolutely miss a whole life, when you feel with your whole body that you desperately need three lives in series and at least two in parallel, when every day is terribly short for you — you have the right life!