Blog of Wade Making Connexions

A Look at Happiness

From what I can gather, most humans want to be happy. Happiness is a very tricky emotion to work out. The Positivity Blog has a video to a psychology professor at Harvard who wrote the book “Stumbling on Happiness”. It’s a stunning watch.
Mr Gilbert (speaker) points out a few quotes on happiness from a book that I’m currently reading. I’ve got a related quote on the same topic, which adds a bit more depth to the equation (for me).From Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments

The never-failing certainty with which all men, sooner or later, accommodate themselves to whatever becomes their permanent situation, may, perhaps, induce us to think that the Stoics were, at least, thus far very nearly in the right; that, between one permanent situation and another, there was, with regard to real happiness, no essential difference: or that, ifthere were any difference, it was no more than just sufficient to render some of them the objects of simple choice or preference; but not of any earnest or anxious desire: and others, of simple rejection, as being fit to be set aside or avoided; but not of any earnest or anxious aversion. Happiness consists in tranquillity and enjoyment. Without tranquillitythere can be no enjoyment; and where there is perfect tranquillity there is scarce any thing which is not capable of amusing. But in every permanent situation, where there is no expectation of change, the mind of every man, in a longer or shorter time, returns to its natural and usual state of tranquillity. In prosperity, after a certain time, it falls back to that state; in adversity, after a certain time, it rises up to it…A mind better furnished would, perhaps, have both sooner recovered its tranquillity, and sooner found, in its own thoughts, a much better amusement.

One of the core functions of meditation is to furnish the mind with tools to help recover tranquillity. I always find it very interesting how both Eastern and Western Schools of Thought reach the same conclusion on happiness, with Eastern giving you the methods on deploying the West’s confirmation.