It was recently unbeknownst to me how truly misguided my thoughts were in terms of living a life of virtue and happiness. That isn't to say that I haven't been happy, quite the contrary in fact; I'm attending my desired university (University of Toronto) and studying what I'm passionate about (philosophy, history, political science). But I think that while I am happy about my current affairs, I don't if I have achieved complete happiness. So, this article will be a comprehensive review of my view of happiness, heavily influenced by my love of philosophy.
I would like to preface that this isn't supposed to be a cute/cliche post about self-development influenced by the inauthentic trend of New Years resolutions about becoming a better person... then forgetting these strong aspirations a month later. Rather, I was transferring some photos to a new phone and came across some old pictures, where I could say that I had some happiness that lost (if you're confused on the meaning of that, I will explain it in this article).
To begin this journey for the formula for happiness, I want to share the story of how I became on this idea. In the twelfth grade, I began writing these short articles about things that I naively knew about as a means of practicing academic writing for university, and as an outlet for my thoughts too. Eventually, this lead to drafting ideas for a novel. The ideas I wrote about for these novels, from what I've been told mirror the style of the TV show, black mirror (although I choose not to watch it because I don't want my ideas for novels to be influenced by it).
The characters I made are unimportant to this article, but the recent success of 'The Witcher' show (which I wholly recommend, alongside the games and the books!), reminded my of one of my characters that I thought of. This is important because I wrote a 13-page summary on my novel (in the works) in the twelfth grade and haven't even thought of it until the past few days. Alas, this lead to some further self-reflection.
In what seems to be the most critical point in a person's life, at least in the industrialized Western Hemisphere, is the transition from high school to other points of their lives. From at least my experience, high school shields you from the harsh reality of life. In this period, my priorities on what I would have wanted in life changed quite drastically heading into university. This involved a change in my perception of what happiness was. Instead of freely acting upon my desires to do as I may, I had to think of my career path as my ultimate form of the pursuit of happiness.
By no means do I mean to complain about the life of an adult, in fact I adore the pressures and adversity that will come with adulthood. However, it becomes apparent that one seems to abandon their fundamental form of happiness for one's livelihood instead of enjoyment. This observation has lead my to think of the well-known phrase: 'money cannot buy happiness'. Instead, I propose that money cannot buy what I would like to call 'complete happiness'.
In what I believe to be 'complete happiness', one must have two subsections of happiness to achieve this ultimate form of satisfaction. The first being 'threshold happiness' which entails that you must have a fundamental foundation for one to build their happiness atop of. The second being 'personal happiness' where you would have to act according to what makes you happy. It should be noted that this a two-step approach where 'threshold happiness is required for one to attain 'personal happiness'. If you're a bit confused about what I'm talking about, let me apply to my life.
Currently, I am looking towards developing my 'threshold happiness', which in my case happens for by my aspirations for law school. I have no doubt in my mind that this career path will make me happy, but it felt like something was missing. This leads into my most recent pursuit of my 'personal happiness', which just so happens to be writing, most importantly my novel. It is only with the combination of my aspirations for a judicial career and doing what I love on the side can I achieve complete happiness. This realization of what my 'threshold' and 'personal' happiness was only made possible through a deep self-evaluation and reflecting on the purpose of everything I do.
About the Creator
Sanj S
Just here for the fun of literature. I plan on continually posting articles regarding different topics from interviews, stories, and educational content. If you enjoy my content, feel free to follow my progress on this platform. Thanks!
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