Chasing happiness, can we?

Created: 26 December 2022

It has been years since my last random content.
Thank you, p’Rut. For your writing workshop that led me to contemplate something to write about.

Do you want to be happy? I can confidently say that everyone does.
The question is, why many of the supposed to be happy people are not?

Let’s explore a well-debated idea of human needs, the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

For those reading this article, I assume you have basic needs met and live a moderately comfortable life.

But if you read until here, I would also assume that you are still not at ease. At least not wholeheartedly.
More importantly, you might feel like you are stuck. I do, too.

Given that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs describes human’s needs in the correct order (arguable but seems ok enough), one reason you are stuck might be that you could not proceed to the next level, from basic needs to psychological needs, using the same approach.

Basic needs can mostly be answered by us acquiring materials to comfort our physical well-being.
Psychological needs, however, cannot not be acquired. It has to be earned.

To level up, you need to learn new skills. Soft skills overshadow hard skills at this stage.
I am still early in this phase but I think being caring and trustworthy are probably on the top of the list.

Looking beyond also suggests another playing field.

Self-fulfillment needs, even stranger, can neither be acquired nor earned. It has to be given away.
Individuals regarded as achieving self-fulfillment lived for something bigger than themselves. That something could be religious, political, humanitarian, business, or any other purposes. Their recognition also often comes with a fame of success.

An entanglement between happiness and success at self-fulfillment level has been beautifully described by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who founded logotherapy and the author of autobiographical Man’s Search for Meaning.

Now, let’s revisit the title “Chasing happiness, can we?”.

The answer probably is, it depends. Depending on what kind of happiness you are undertaking.

• For basic needs, then yes. At this stage, your happiness goes up roughly linearly with your physical efforts.
• For psychological and needs self-fulfillment, probably no. These two categories of needs and happiness cannot be chased. They have to be earned. One from others, another from oneself.

Although the order of needs stated in Maslow’s hierarchy aligns with a common path of life, it could differ between individuals.

No matter what your journey is, may happiness be with you~