RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 October 1941, Page 8

RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS

DOING THINGS WORTH WHILE. In reply to the question, “What is Happiness?” Professor C. E. M. Joad, the philosopher, offered the folowing:— “There’s a very famous answer in Aristotle. Aristotle says that happiness is to be found in the exercise of all your best faculties, tuned up to concert pitch, employed upon what he calls an appropriate subject matter, that is to say, doing what they are fitted and suited for; interspersed with intervals of recreation, in leisure (or pleasure), in artistic enjoyment, in the conversation of one’s friends. Happiness as he sees it is a matter of effort and endeavour; it isn’t to be found in sitting back and saying: ‘Now let’s enjoy ourselves.’ It isn’t to be found in the gospel of a good time. It’s to be found rather in doing something which apears to you to be worth while, being used up to the last ounce of your energy and capacity in doing it, and then looking back and noticing that you have been happy. Happiness has been, as Aldous Huxley has said, like coke—it’s a by-product; something that is thrown off in the act of doing something else. Aristotle’s famous metaphor is that it’s like the bloom on the cheek of a young man in perfect health; it’s not a part of health, but it’s something added. It’s a sign that the organism is functioning appropriately on an appropriate subject matter. Now, I should like to put that briefly by saying that happiness is something which does not yield itself to direct pursuit, but comes incidentally. It’s not a house which can be built with men’s hands. It’s like the Kingdom of Heaven, it can’t be taken by storm. It’s like a flower, it surprises you; a sort of song that you hear as you pass the hedge, rising suddenly into the night. Really, the best recipe for happiness that I know is not to have leisure enough to wonder whether you are being miserable or not; in other words, happiness is a by-product of activity.”