Three Degrees of Happiness

How many books and articles have been written about "happiness?"

The very declaration of our nation's independence says that our Creator endowed us with "certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Many people view happiness as the goal and purpose of life.  In my work I see hundreds of patients who are seeking it.  Some through family, others through friends, and others in a joint or bottle.  Some think a pill will grant it, others are certain that money is the key.

Personally, I have found three degrees of happiness.  There are three types, three sources, three keys to happiness.  They are pleasure, inner-peace, and eternal joy.

1. Pleasure: That which gives us momentary enjoyment.  

Pleasure can be both good and bad.  One can find pleasure in listening to a favorite song, eating a piece of chocolate, hearing a funny joke, or helping a friend.  It can be found in seeing someone "get what they deserve," or in a forbidden pleasure, in skipping school or breaking the rules or laws.  It can be found in alcohol, cocaine, heroin, LSD, marijuana, caffeine, or pure vanilla ice cream.  

Pleasure doesn't differentiate between right and wrong, short term or long term consequences. Pleasure is now. 

2. Inner Peace: Living according to our values.

Everyone has their own values, their own ideals.  Everyone has a vision of what they should be, how they should be different, what actions they should or shouldn't be doing.  These values may come from parents, friends, society, religion, or many other sources.  Many values include Family, Friendship, Work, Education, Recreation, Spirituality, Community, Health, the Environment, the Arts, etc...

Inner Peace comes from living according to your ideals.  It comes from having less regret and more fulfillments.  When your mind no longer argues between what you ARE doing and what you SHOULD be doing, that is inner peace. 

Most self help books are about these first two degrees of happiness.  They encourage pleasure as long as the means are in-line with your values.  They help people reach inner peace by eliminating internal conflict.

The problem is that not all values are good.  Criminal Gangs have values.  They may value gang loyalty to such a high degree that one would steal, kill, and serve time in prison to have the inner peace of being loyal and true to their word.  Many people can reach inner peace and still be a terror to society, to their families, their communities.  
Most any religion has its extremists: they are at complete inner peace as they engage in Crusades, terrorist bombings, lynchings, etc...

Inner peace is not the end goal.

3. Eternal Joy:  Living according to universal principles.

When our values match universal principles, then we can find true happiness; the joy that lasts and is independent of circumstance.

Principles are not practices and they are not specific to one religion or society.  They are universal. Everyone knows them and values them, though they interpret them differently 

Examples include: Fairness, Integrity, Honesty, Human Dignity, Service, Quality, Potential, and Patience.

I often think of the question: "Do I have happy moments, or a happy life?"

Happy moments are easy to come by, but they don't last.  In fact the more we do the same thing seeking the same level of pleasure, the more we'll be disappointed.  Whether it be thrills, or food, or drugs, or a new relationship - That momentary pleasure is usually best the first time.  Unless it also leads to inner peace or eternal joy, it will fade and we will move on to something else.

We can have inner peace and still have a miserable life, we simply won't care.  With inner peace we believe we are right and we will continue to think so because we are living by our values.  Other people's lives, opinions, or judgments don't matter because we have inner peace.  Many people consider this the ultimate goal. -It is the first step only.

Once we discover eternal and universal principles, then we can align our values with those principles. We can make goals according to those principles.  It won't always matter if we reach every goal or not. We may change our minds on goals or choose something new to work toward.  Since the principles never change, the change in goals won't matter because we've been moving in the right direction the entire time.

All three degrees of happiness are important, but the only way to enjoy pleasure without future regret is to make the pleasure match our values.  The only way to enjoy inner peace and building lasting happiness for ourselves and everyone around us is to make our values match universal principles.