How to be Happy? Through True Freedom

Today’s belief is that happiness is in the freedom to do what you will, as long as it doesn’t infringe on the freedom of others. We often hear advice from friends and family: “do what makes you happy.” While at its core, this is excellent advice; it is a bit oversimplified as our society has a grave misunderstanding of what substantial happiness is.

We get our modern word happiness from the old English word “hap,” which refers to good luck or good fortune. When a friend approaches us with a grin, we might ask, “why do you look so happy?” expecting to hear that he just found a 20-dollar bill, or maybe he just was surprised with a favorite dessert. But is this what is meant when someone refers to happiness as pertaining to the pursuit of happiness? We can easily distinguish that the latter refers to a primordial desire to acquire soulful fulfillment, not a fleeting encounter with pleasure!

Despite the vivid difference in meaning, our society incessantly convolutes the terms, and it ends up getting us in trouble and making us very, very unhappy. This is because when we find the first kind of happiness, we only end up chasing the fleeting experience of pleasure. No lasting fulfillment can be found on the back of a sensation that comes and goes.

Paradoxically, this constant desire for pleasure only hinders the real stuff of happiness. Our souls become so starved for what they long for that the world’s fleeting pleasures entice us and throw us off course. The search for pleasure becomes a distraction from the poverty of what we truly desire. Lasting contentment is only found when we acquire enough restraint and self-control to pursue what will ultimately fulfill us. This is how to be happy: by resisting the passions and cultivating virtue so that one can have more ease in pursuing what truly makes us flourish as humans. 

The synthesis of the Stoic and Catholic views of happiness

Catholic theology and stoic philosophy have similar teachings on acquiring happiness. While there is variance in minor details, both agree that the human soul is meant to be perfected in its form. Like a tree, The soul grows into what it was destined to be. But unlike a tree, our soul partakes actively in its journey and, due to its choice in the matter, can become derailed. Our inability to control our passions will quickly divert our course, not only stagnating our growth but also making us unhappy.

Both believe that man was made for higher goods such as love, friendship, wisdom, and our development towards perfection, and the ease of attainment of things like food, drink, and sex can quickly start to pull us from what truly makes us flourish and become addicted to pleasure for its own sake. When we repeatedly choose the lower pleasures over the higher pleasures, we start to lose our disciple and sense of reason, and the less discipline we have, the harder it becomes to act logically.

We can imagine a scenario where someone wants to start exercising. They envision themselves in a more perfect form- slimmer, chiseled abs and better overall health. Bolstered by the prospect of their vision of what they could attain, they agree that in the morning, they’ll get up early and go to the gym! 

Well, 10:00 pm rolls around, and they’re watching Netflix. They are engaged in pure entertainment consumption (a more base good). They come to a crossroad and think, “If I watch another episode, I probably won’t get enough rest to go to the gym.” So they either lie to themselves and say, “no, I’ll be fine” or bargain that’ll go the following morning instead.”

We all are too familiar with this point because this scenario has happened to all of us. We have a more perfected notion of ourselves and naturally want to pursue it. But some lesser, more easily-attained good like food, drink, sex or entertainment gets in the way, and we opt for the low-hanging fruit (which is always less ripe). 

Just imagine a life like this. A life in which we cannot achieve anything worthwhile because as soon as there’s something more accessible, we choose that, resulting in our unending stagnation. We can start to see this as an actual sickness. Now imagine a culture that tells you, “NOOO! Don’t pursue the better things, don’t try to overcome your lack of disciple, and just indulge because life is short, and you only live once! Do what makes you “happy.”

Hedonism doesn’t get you happiness; look at the world.

Looking more closely at society, we can see how unhappy the people around us are. And we can see the ones who are happy are the ones who focus on developing virtue to obtain the more meaningful things in life. The world will tell you that it’s OK to work hard and sacrifice for what you want, but only as long as these things are a means for more pleasure. Get in shape so you can be better looking; work harder to make more money and get more stuff or even higher status.

Now, these things aren’t bad. The Catholic Church will tell you that these things are good, but they aren’t ends in themselves. They are only a means to an end, that end being God.

The most thought-provoking thing about these considerations is that if you asked someone if money gets you happiness, does sex get you fulfillment, or any other simple pleasure, they’d most likely tell you no. But that’s not how people live, and the average person knows in their heart that pleasure doesn’t bring happiness.

We often see people who live for the weekend, who live to escape reality through the distraction that pleasure gives them, whether living their life through a screen or a pipe. All while ignoring the freedom that could be had through attaining the discipline necessary to reject these distractions to attain things that make us truly happy.

Acquiring virtue regulates our desire for pleasure.

A point of contention between stoicism and Catholicism would be their judgment of the passions. While Stoics would say that passions are evil altogether, Catholics would convey that rightly ordered passions are essential. Catholic theology teaches that passions are meant to move us in the right direction toward our natural end.

For example, hunger is a good passion; without it, we probably would forget to eat and starve to death. Sexual desire is a good passion; the human race would go extinct without it. Even anger can be helpful when regulated because it stirs a strong feeling that something needs to change. The passions are natural, and since all natural things come from God, all natural things are good.

But when we become unable to regulate our passions is where problems arise. All virtue is the tendency to act according to reason, and to act following logic, is to participate in life in ways that are most fruitful to our flourishing.

Sex is most fruitful to our flourishing when it is regulated by Chastity. In a marital context, Chastity directs our sexual desire to one man or woman. In this direction, we get the most out of love; we build the strongest bond, the most fruitful bond with our spouse. If God so willing grants the relationship children, those children would benefit from the expression of Chasity by witnessing their parent’s profound love for one another and the sacredness of love. The result of a chaste relationship between parents reverberates throughout generational lines, raising their participation in genuine love.

Oppositely, if a man or a woman throws their love from person to person to pursue self-gratification and pleasure, love is not expressed. Egoism is, and love is only turned inward, and God forbid that the result of this pleasure-seeking is a child. That child then sees that they are the result not of love but of egoism – of seeking sexual gratification.

Now, this may be an oversimplification. I know many single parents who are loving and great parents, and God being so good can bring the blessing of a child through their mistakes. The point I’m making is that this is not optimal, and huge repercussions could be avoided with the expression of virtue, supporting that the higher good is in regulating the passions through the practice of virtue.

Achieve happiness through the freedom of virtue.

We must reject popular society’s idea that we must always seek pleasure and that freedom lies in doing what one wants. What’s pleasurable may feel good, and it may be fun, but it isn’t going to merit the most significant return on our investment. Pleasure, unfortunately, is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Pleasure is meant to direct us toward the natural end as humans, and what is natural is what is good.

Seeking virtue is challenging, but it is the means to living a happy life, which consists of doing nothing extraordinary in an extraordinary way. It’s not something that one week you’ll have and the next you won’t; it’s a lifelong journey. It is built one decision at a time, and as soon as we pursue it, we will start to acquire it. As soon as we stop pursuing it, we will lose it. In truth, there is no other worthy pursuit because it directs us toward living our happiest life.

Let us remember that day by day, each decision we make has profound effects on our interior fulfillment in life. Each decision made that is not directing us toward what is truly good diminishes our ability even to attempt to be happy through slavery to pleasure or what is easiest.

So, let us break the chains of slavery to pleasure with the hammer of virtue and climb the mountain of what truly fulfills us– the good and natural life.