A good life is a happy life. Happiness is achieved through living an ethical life. Good relations and taking responsibility are happiness by itself. But good people aren’t always happy. Why? Because goodness is an ideal stage; it is something you wish for. Even the best archer doesn’t always hit the bull’s-eye. External conditions make it easier to achieve happiness. For example, an archer is more likely to hit a target if she uses the best-made bow than if she used a poorly made bow. No one, though, has everything that is needed - peaceful times, perfect health, an objective society, loving parents, caring teachers etc.
No one can be happy all the time. But you can approach happiness with a
good family, a good friend, a good government, good enough
possessions and adequate health. Happiness, while not possible all the time, is possible at least some of
the time. More than that, you can look back on your life and say that you were
happy. Happiness is the overall assessment of your life, not the episodic
moments. It’s Seurat’s pointillist picture from a distance, not the dots up
close. True happiness is loving the right things and loving them in the right
way. Ethical relationships make it more likely than not that as you look back
on your life you will be able to say, “I have lived a good life.”
Still, there is something about happiness that is sovereign of virtue. This is the happiness that is found in the joy of existence, the delight in simply being. This can be experienced either with others or in moments of solitude. Whatever form it takes, I suppose, is a matter of temperament. Individual characters and upbringing will lead people to find happiness in different ways. Some are, by nature, social, others more solitary. I may find happiness in the company of people or you may prefer a walk in the park. You may enjoy the quiet of a good book, or perhaps it is the cordiality of the dinner table you seek. Some love cities, others the countryside.
How you find happiness, it is always accompanied by love, for happiness is ultimately the love of life, the celebration of living. You want to take care of people whom you love, and you are attentive toward it. The person who finds happiness through love is the person who can be trusted to bring happiness to others. There are those who possess everything they claim to have wanted but still aren’t happy. They think they can be happy yet indifferent, happy while independent. The truth is the opposite: happiness requires gratitude and an acknowledgement of interdependence with that which is around you. More wealth doesn’t make you happier; deeper and better relations do.
The places of happiness are infinite, the sources never-ending. You reside those places not because they have been pursued but because you have opened your heart and have allowed them in.
Still, there is something about happiness that is sovereign of virtue. This is the happiness that is found in the joy of existence, the delight in simply being. This can be experienced either with others or in moments of solitude. Whatever form it takes, I suppose, is a matter of temperament. Individual characters and upbringing will lead people to find happiness in different ways. Some are, by nature, social, others more solitary. I may find happiness in the company of people or you may prefer a walk in the park. You may enjoy the quiet of a good book, or perhaps it is the cordiality of the dinner table you seek. Some love cities, others the countryside.
How you find happiness, it is always accompanied by love, for happiness is ultimately the love of life, the celebration of living. You want to take care of people whom you love, and you are attentive toward it. The person who finds happiness through love is the person who can be trusted to bring happiness to others. There are those who possess everything they claim to have wanted but still aren’t happy. They think they can be happy yet indifferent, happy while independent. The truth is the opposite: happiness requires gratitude and an acknowledgement of interdependence with that which is around you. More wealth doesn’t make you happier; deeper and better relations do.
The places of happiness are infinite, the sources never-ending. You reside those places not because they have been pursued but because you have opened your heart and have allowed them in.
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