Happiness: The Misunderstood Celebrity
Had the pleasure of having lunch with one of my favorite law professors today. Of course, he’s pretty smart, so I had to kick up my brain cells a bit to match him (which, I of course failed at 150%).
Anyway, we were talking about…of all things…happiness, and which philosophers said what about it. I think after getting back to my office and looking it up, Aristotle might have it right. Although, the word itself in Western culture…? Has been badly branded, and misunderstood. Maybe lost in translation…?
Aristotle I think argued that happiness wasn’t a fleeting, ephemeral emotion. It instead is an endgame; and thus, if one is looking over her entire life, she can’t really definitively say she’s been “happy” or “not happy” until she gets to the end. Here in the US, we tend to use the term as describing our night out with the girls, or going to a movie, or participating in some program that will end in 3 hours or less. This site describes how happiness the word got a bad rap in western culture.
So…I’m coming around. Guess that means I can’t brand whether or not my life has been “happy” until the end…or at least closer to it. So….? I will continue to keep plugging away, one day at a time, one hour at a time, on the things that I truly believe need to get done, and worry about the happiness later on.
