The greatest gift In our relentless search for happiness, have we made it more difficult to find?
Mariella Frostrup Sunday February 8, 2004 The Observer Many greate minds have previously feasted on the topic of happiness, from Aristotle to Monty Python, via Shakespeare, John Donne, Descartes, Bentham, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Gorky, Camus, to name just a few - the list is so long I could have cobbled together my entire article from the Penguin Thesaurus of Quotations. I was sorely tempted. Particularly since my only illumination following hours of research was that the subject of happiness is as over-exposed as Jordan's breasts. The arbitrary nature of happiness was confirmed for me last week when, after three months of trepidation, I could finally admit to my friends and family that I was pregnant. Who'd have thought that the simple news that we made a baby could keep a smile on my face for seven days, something career triumphs, glamorous assignments and encounters with the famous and powerful had never managed. It was sheer good fortune that in the same week I got to opine on the subject of happiness at the Fabian Society and prove my own point. The trouble with happiness is that it's not something that can be captured, tied up or guaranteed. By its very nature, it's elusive; it sneaks up on us when we least expect it and disappears when we've done everything we possibly can to ensure its presence. It's like the worst boyfriend in the world, which is why when it finally turns up we are so grateful. These days there really does seem to be less of it about - I'm not talking about boyfriends - which is ironic when you consider that our lives are utterly dedicated to its pursuit. So why does happiness increasingly elude us? I think it's for two reasons. First, we have created a society that is utterly selfish and devoted to the pursuit of personal happiness. We are under pressure to feel happy and feel entitled to be happy. If we are not we blame others - especially politicians; or our parents; or our lack of opportunity; or our boss; or our spouse; or the bloody traffic warden who's just given us a ticket. Or is that just me? Frequently there's only one name missing from the long list of conspirators battling to deny us our right to ceaseless joy and that's our own. The second reason it's difficult to be happy is that we think we can measure happiness, or sniff it out like truffles. We imagine that it's an emotion in isolation and that we are powerless to contribute to its presence. We live in a world where the basic building blocks of happiness have become so much a part of our mental landscape that they no longer make us happy. We're like children on a rainy Sunday afternoon, impossible to please. We have everything and nothing and still we're surprised that the symbols we aspire to don't bring us the unbridled joy we were convinced they would. We create teeming metropolises and homes full of mod cons, then sit glued with envy to Tales From River Cottage as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall tries to recreate the lifestyle of a medieval peasant. We plunder the oceans by reckless over-fishing and then make recordings of fast-disappearing populations of whales and dolphins to enhance a calming massage. Only the other day I read about a stress-reducing phone line for business executives where they can listen to 'the genuine woodland sound of silence'. If nature makes us so happy perhaps we should stop destroying it. We blame others if we are not happy, and measure our happiness levels in material ways. We are obsessed with the symbols and labels of success. Some say it's because we have so much more time than our ancestors to think about life. I wonder if that's true. I remember media murmurings in the Eighties predicting a new life of leisure for the happy residents of First World technological nations. It's a promised Utopia that seems to have eluded us. I like a bit of government bashing as much as the next Gilligan and perhaps government is part of the problem. Politicians have taken over from Church leaders as the harbingers of happiness and it's their emptiest promise yet. The Americans enshrined it in their constitution. Stalin called himself 'The Constructor of Happiness'. Kim Il Sung is praised on a website as creating a country where 'the people enjoy the boundless happiness as the masters'. Democracies and dictatorships, totalitarian states and fascists all promise their people happiness. This government promised to make people happy. They promised not to tax me too much and to put my money to good use, which made me happy; to encourage the economy to prosper; to keep the housing market stable; to improve the National Health Service, public transport and my quality of life. I was delirious with all of that. Genuinely happy for at least five minutes. Of course, there is a basic safety net that governments can provide that contributes to our sense of well-being. Reliable pensions, housing, education, health, transport, safe streets - it sounds like 'What have the Romans ever done for us?' But whether it's the Romans, Thatcher or Blair, they may make us wealthier. Some may even do a reasonable job of stitching together this safety net. But none can make us happy. The mistake we make is to imagine these services are the portals to happiness rather than just some of the tools. Look at the poor Scandinavians, with the best social system in Europe, if not the world, and yet they regularly top the global suicide list. So what does make us happy? Edith Wharton apparently said that happiness is the sublime moment when you get out of your corsets. Having burnt my bra in the Seventies on my mother's instructions I can't say I know how that feels. But I know what she means. What I am going to say may sound trite: What makes us happy is not immersion in all that is superficial. By its very nature happiness is a transitory state. It cannot be dreamt up or forced upon us. To really enjoy it we need to be comfortable with ourselves and connected to others. We need to be able to enjoy the micro-moments... your baby's smile, a friend's good fortune, the first scent of spring, church bells on a sunny Sunday morning, kindness from a stranger, a traffic warden falling on his face. Happiness is not an object you can grasp. It's like water - try to pick it up and it will drain through your fingers. Bloated by the luxuries of living in a rich democracy, we have lost sight of the small things that are the root of happiness, and the truth that happiness is rooted within us, not in objects. Feeling good about yourself, living in harmony with others, establishing your own workable moral code, striving to improve yourself, allowing time to register the larger world outside your own experience and, most important of all, retaining faith and love in your fellow humans no matter how challenging it seems... this way true happiness lies. Happiness is without question the greatest drug on the planet. It's free, there's an endless supply and it's even good for you. If governments could control it and drug dealers could grab it, they would certainly do so. But happiness is made great by it's sheer elusiveness. It can't be prepared in a lab or pushed into a syringe. It can't be legislated for, prescribed, enforced or ordered up. It's the strongest reason for living that there is and, when you see it shine its light on the faces of those you love, it confirms that life is more than just a battle for survival. Yet in our relentless search for a quick fix we've made it so much harder to achieve. Once again, forgive me if I appear na�ve, like one of those party political broadcasts that promises to change the country overnight. To rectify the situation, I'll end with the end of Bertrand Russell's book, Conquest of Happiness: 'A happy man feels himself the citizen of the universe, enjoying freely the spectacle that it offers and the joys that it affords, untroubled by the thought of death because he feels himself not really separate from those who will come after him. It is in such profound instinctive union with the stream of life that the greatest joy is to be found.' Whether Bertrand himself ever experienced this nirvanic state I don't know. If he did I certainly hope he lived long enough to enjoy it. Today's fast-moving pursuers of happiness would do well to remember the words oft attributed to George II: 'I feel better now.' They were also his last.
