What Is Happiness: Why Can It Seem Offensive?

Why can declaring yourself to be happy carry overtones of being a dilettante, being in denial, callous or having no real problems in life? Both history and scientific research argue that present happiness consists of three elements: the meaningful life; the engaged life; and the pleasant life. Rather like the equilibrium in the accompanying illustration.

There are studies of Bangladesh that report that eight out of ten people there claim to be happy. The reports emphasises the great happiness and satisfaction that people derive from their family lives, despite great privations. The report is not an argument for the happiness-promoting qualities of great poverty. The study suggests that previous aid efforts in Bangladesh may have failed because the aid-providers were solely interested in promoting economic development of the individual. Aid-providers saw the grinding poverty and a rigid family and social hierarchy that they perceived as stifling: they did not look at the need to keep the institutions that contribute to people's happiness. And so, many of the aid-initiatives there have failed in their intent.

I had many apprehensions about an invitation to run Laughter Yoga workshops with homeless people. When I mentioned this to friends, the level of repulsion stimulated a rich stream of comments. To give you a flavour of the comments, some people seemed to have heard an announcement that I intended to order myself a feast, lock some homeless people in a cage, turn the fire-hoses on them, and then chow down, my appetite heightened by enjoyment in the sight of human suffering. However, I decided that it was up to others to be offended, or not turn up, or however they chose to respond. The centre where I ran the workshops had a choice of activities that their service-users could select. Homeless people did turn up to the sessions. They did enjoy themselves. Some of them said that it was their first opportunity to laugh in years. Others remarked that they rarely got to do anything as a group activity and they had appreciated that the laughter works best in a group.

I had similar reservations when I was asked to run some laughter sessions in a hospice. I've spent time visiting both friends and family members in a hospice and the atmosphere can sometimes feel very charged with complex emotions. But, there was no need for people to attend if they didn't want to, so it wasn't for me to pre-empt anyone's decision by refusing to run the sessions. Sometimes the laughter lead to tears: with other family members it seemed to prompt, "Do you remember when...?", or "Doesn't the little one laugh like his grandfather?". A few of the patients remarked to me that they had enjoyed the opportunity to do something normal with their family and not 'do' the illness.

When you see scenes like the baby in the ladybird outfit, it's an opportunity to share in the mood of the moment. If we can't share in the mood of a social occasion, it may indicate isolation and an inability to participate or to connect with others. On the other hand, it may not: it just might not suit your mood at that time. Similarly, although there may be times when it is the wrong context for expressing happiness, there is something equally oppressive about the dead weight of resentment expressed towards those who are happy. Remarks such as "I'm glad someone can be happy. I don't have the time for such nonsense" always smack of a Wexford Curse to me. Particularly when such remarks come from assumptions and no understanding of another person's circumstances.

At a time when there seems to be little social stigma attached to people regularly drinking to the point of unconsciousness, there seems to be something less mature and more shameful about being happy. Unless this is just another instance of the British, taking our pleasures sadly.

I was recently surprised to learn that 'experts' considered that bereaved spouses who were able to cope with their loss without grieving were either 'emotionally distant' or 'in denial'. It wasn't until a recent study that researchers established that such people might be resilient from their years of happy marriage. Both grief and resilience are areas that are influenced by social expectation but it seems ludicrous that either appropriate grief or resilience should be medicalised. I have a vague memory that part of the case against the anti-hero of Camus' L'Etranger was that he accepted a drink of cafe-au-lait when viewing the body of his dead mother.

Being happy is associated with better health, greater longevity, and a host of other desirable must-haves (I'm sure that someone, somewhere credits it with anti-dandruff properties). This would seem to be the final insult for people who are not happy, if science didn't also claim we can increase our levels of happiness and resilience. Sometimes, finding purpose and enjoyment in life despite what is happening seems like a take on Scott Fitzgerald's manifesto: "Living well is the best revenge". Life can be very fragile: our capacity to have the three types of happiness can be one of the resources that stops our enjoyment of life from being eroded.

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project