Dear Happy(?) Campers:

Happiness is a byproduct, not a goal. I heard that quote during a podcast interview last week and it is stuck in my head. 

A little research reveals that Mahatma Gandhi may or may not have said something similar. His abbreviated quote usually reads, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Except that seems to be a memeification (yes, invented word) of a longer, more verifiable Gandhi quote: “Happiness is a direction, not a place. Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”

Gandhi’s words may have been in the mind of Eleanor Roosevelt when, in 1960, she wrote, “Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.” This sentence is found in chapter six of her book, You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, a series of reflections based on her twenty years writing an advice column for the Ladies’ Home Journal. Her thought continues, “Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively. After a short time, a very short time, there would be little that one really enjoyed. For what keeps our interest in life and makes us look forward to tomorrow is giving pleasure to other people.”

Nearly twenty-five years after Eleanor’s book, beat poet William Burroughs commented in a 1984 New York Times interview, “Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.” Burroughs was no stranger to conflict.

On this Monday I am musing over the sources of happiness, because I fear we spend too much energy chasing a phantom. Even if we are not trying to claim it for ourselves, we often obsess over happiness for our children, our partners, our friends. It’s a sure-fire ticket to co-dependence when we decide that our own happiness, whatever that is, is fused to upbeat outcomes for others. ‘All I want for you is to be happy’ is the mantra of many a miserable soul; and an obsessive inquiry into a partner’s happiness can drive even the best marriage into a long evening of profoundly unsatisfying conversation. The time would be much happier spent doing something enjoyable rather than discussing the relationship’s emotional temperature.

The blessed in the Beatitudes of Jesus (Matthew 5) is occasionally translated as happy, as in happy are the peacemakers (vs 9), substituting blessed with the more modern happy. This translation first appeared in late 19th century Biblical Greek lexicons. At that time happiness was an objective, observable state rather than an introspective, emotional interpretation. The drift of happiness’s meaning was exactly why Gandhi, Roosevelt and Burroughs offered their warnings. Detaching happiness from action and condition makes it ephemeral—harder to grasp. In bygone days, observing “I am a happy person” would be the equivalent of saying “I am a blessed person.” As if to say blessing and happiness described the same condition. But now, happiness has become an emotional state divorced from both situation and blessing.

I would suggest the underlying Greek word may be better translated for us as ‘broad’ or ‘stable’, as in “stable are the peacemakers”. This conveys a condition of one’s being, not an emotional state of giddiness. If happiness is not a goal but the residue of other life pursuits (like peacemaking), perhaps we should spend less time wondering, “Am I happy?” or “Are you happy?” And more time asking, “What will bring stability?” or “What will broaden our foundation?” and allow happiness to take care of itself.

Another Roosevelt, Teddy, is quoted, “Comparison is the thief of joy!” (Twain is often credited with the quote, but by his own admission he stole it from TR, substituting death for thief.) Perhaps comparison is the reason our happiness is so easily stolen and our blessedness too frequently overlooked.

Hoping this musing offers a little stability, I remain,

With love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor