Where is Happiness?

ICHAK ADIZES revisits the question of happiness and mental well-being, asking whether we have been looking in the right place. 

Many of us have asked ourselves: “What is happiness?” When asked in this way, it can be very difficult to find an answer. Where should one start? Trying to define the term can get you lost in endless interpretations.

I suggest rephrasing the question to: “Where is happiness?” Because if you figure out where it is, you just might find it.

So where is it? Where is happiness?

Happiness is not found in nostalgia for the past or expectations for the future. The past is gone and unchangeable; the future has not arrived. Happiness is only in the present, experienced by letting go of the past and detaching from the future.

But how?

Letting go of the past is relatively easy compared to detaching from the future. While we know the past is dead, the future still holds potential. This lingering possibility makes it far more difficult for us to let go of what has yet to happen.

The secret to freeing ourselves from the false hopes of future happiness—and the suffering that follows unrealized hopes—is to let go of expectations. It’s okay to project or plan, but once you turn projections into expectations, unhappiness can result. Expectations may not be realistic, dreams may be disconnected from reality, and uncertainty is always present. When our expected outcomes do not happen, we might feel failure and disappointment.

In the present, there are no expectations. There’s nothing but reality, and if the reality is accepted, happiness lies in enjoying that reality, in enjoying the “what is.” For example, consider a sudden rain shower: you are being rained on and getting wet. Do you accept that it’s raining and find what you can enjoy about it? (As someone once said, “I like people who smile when it is raining.”) Or do you curse the sky for bringing the rain when you were not prepared? To illustrate this further, in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn shows how Ivan, even in a gulag, is happy that he still has a single slice of bread to eat.

Happiness is accepting whatever life brings in the moment. Instead of expecting, rejecting, negating, or hoping, it means simply accepting reality and enjoying every minute, without descending into misery. This state is possible regardless of wealth or success. The more ambitious you are, the higher the probability of unhappiness.

I have a friend. He is happy. Never seen him complain. He finds a way to appreciate each moment, no matter what it is. When we go walking, he sees the trees, the flowers, and the animals, and he enjoys them all exactly in the moment.

Happiness is only in the present,
experienced by letting go of the
past and detaching from the future.

I feel the importance of this message for myself as I’m getting older. Periodically, I get depressed that my dreams will not be fulfilled. I brood over the fact that the end is approaching and that my expectations for my life will not be realized. What I want to achieve would take another generation to be realized, yet I have only one life to give.
When asked what he wanted his epitaph to read, Shimon Peres, the Israeli statesman, replied: “Died prematurely.”
Accepting our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, our deficiencies, and our perishability—and then enjoying whatever life presents to us—is where happiness dwells.