A Truly Happy New Year
As we embark on another new year, many of us will go in with the intention of fulfilling specific resolutions. These resolutions are filled with hope fortified with the belief that upon fulfilling, they will make us happier. Although this might be true, we might be making resolutions that actually steal our happiness and keep us further away from attaining what we really seek and need.
Shallow waters are easy to come by but enduring happiness is not found in the shallow but in the depth, in those uncharted dark waters that we are too scared to plunge into. For some of us, we might not even know that those uncharted, dark waters exist, or we might have grown far too comfortable in the shallow that we have no idea that there is something beyond it.
So within this blog, I am going to help us take a dive into those deep waters and explore the different levels of happiness so that we can make a conscious decision going into this new year to make resolutions that offer us deep and long-lasting happiness with some monetary happiness sprinkled here and there.
According to Aristotle, the Four Levels of Happiness are:
External- Pleasure Material
Ego-Comparative
Contributive-Empathetic
Transcendent
So let’s start with Level One.
Level One is all about pleasure and immediate gratification. This kind of happiness thrives on sensuality. It needs constant bodily gratification. It is primal and devoid of temperance. Level one is how we all lived for the first years of life. When we were babies we were completely dependent on the external, like the comfort of our mother’s chest, food, and milk. These physical pleasures made us happy. This is natural and necessary for our growth and development, however, many of us stay in this level of happiness well-beyond childhood. We yearn for food, sex, drink, clothes, some material good to make us happy. The problem with this is that it is always short-lived. It never fully satisfies and it keeps us hungry for more. After the food has been consumed, there is no chest to lay our head on, and our cup is empty, we find ourselves feeling the all too familiar void. Out of all the levels, this level is the most shallow. It is a kind of happiness that is superficial and fleeting, and completely centered on the self.
“If it feels good, do it.” “YOLO!” “Treat Yo Self!”
Culturally, this level is celebrated and advertised. It’s what keeps Consumerism alive and well, and retail companies, successful enterprises.However, it’s a disordered way of living that cuts ourselves off from experiencing life in all of its depth and abundance. Within mental health, this is where a lot of mental health challenges are birthed. Obsessions, compulsions, addictions, anxieties, and depressive moods can be formed when physical pleasure and immediate gratification doesn’t satisfy but it’s sought out anyway.
Level Two takes it one step further and offers a little bit more depth. Instead of the pursuit of tangible goods and pleasure, level two is about the pursuit of achievement. It thrives off being recognized. It delights in winning. It is constantly comparing oneself to the achievements of others and desiring to be “better.” Within this level, we use our gifts and talents. We experience great satisfaction in attaining degrees, winning games and competitions, losing weight, and receiving tangible success. Psychologically, this level is important because we gain self-confidence and develop habits and a way of thinking that can help us develop some self-mastery. Unlike Level One, within this level, we learn to sacrifice bodily pleasures and instant gratification in order to achieve something better in the future. However, the pursuit of achievement and the shadow of comparison can lead people into the same mental health challenges as Level One. Once the degree has been earned, the game has been won, the weight has been lost, we often find that it is still not enough. This level leads to happiness that lasts for a longer duration of time but is often quickly replaced with exhaustion, despair, and hopelessness.
Level Three is still rooted in our ego but looks outward to the world much larger. Within this level, we learn that there is happiness in serving others and being connected to others. This level feeds the human desire for meaning and purpose. It brings virtue into our lives like compassion, goodness, and justice, and offers deep friendship and unity. Within this level, we can feel happier when others are happy. We can also feel happier by just being in the presence of another. This is the level that starts to bring psychological aid and healing to our mental health.
Level Three is a lot more lasting but it can be difficult to maintain due to the frailty of human relationships. The reality is it is challenging to make others happy all the time. We fail one another. We experience disappointment. We become jealous of what other people possess. We experience wounds and heartbreak. We limit or refrain from our service to others when people don’t offer us the same service in return or express gratitude.
Psychologically, when this level becomes our main objective, we can solely focus on making other people happy and neglect our own selves and inflict grave harm in the process, which in turn, keeps us far from happiness. We also can constantly look for human relationships to satisfy and fulfill us. We can develop grave fears of being alone and can even become co-dependent, which creates unhealthy relationships with others. When this happens, it can also cause the same mental health challenges as Level One and Level Two.
Level Four is about reaching for the fullness of happiness. It’s not so much about the attainment of perfect goodness, perfect beauty, perfect truth, and perfect love, but the constant pursuit of it. It is a transcendence into what is beyond the earthly realm- beyond the physical pleasures, beyond the accolades and success, and beyond charity. This level is the most difficult to explain but I like to think of it as the reason why a person can smile wide and experience a deep appreciation for life in the midst of tragedy and pain. Or how a community can rebuild their city with even greater faith and trust, after a massive storm. It answers the big questions we all have about why we are here and what our purpose is and expands our thinking and our ways of being so that we can live more open, honest, and fulfilled. This kind of happiness is the most enduring and most transformational.
Akin to the previous levels, there is always a shadow that we should be aware of. Sometimes when our happiness is solely here in Level Four, we can become overly scrupulous or zealous. When this happens, we can become so disconnected from our bodies and the good we can accomplish within them, or so estranged from others that it becomes difficult to see the needs and feelings of others and connect.
Level Four is the deepest we can go in this life and is full of lasting happiness, but just like the levels that preceded it, it is not the final destination. When we finally make it to the deep, mysterious waters, we find that in our human frailty, we do not have the endurance to stay here. We need to sometimes go to more shallow waters just to stay afloat. Staying in one of these levels for too long is what causes mental health challenges and is actually what disturbs our happiness. Therefore, we have to discover the ability to go through these different levels moderately, prudently, and intentionally. God made us experience happiness. God wants us to experience the various levels so we can encounter our most authentic selves and our highest calling.
For me personally, this looks like starting my day with prayer and seeking God’s presence in my life. Inviting God into my day and asking for God to be with me and guide me. It looks like eating something really sweet like pancakes, or toast with Nutella and drinking a Latte. It also looks like going for a run and exercising my body. By 10:30 am I usually have intentionally weaved in and out of all four levels but I always start with what I believe will make me the happiest to ground me and then, move to what else my mind, body, and soul might need.
For New Years Resolutions I apply the same logic. I start with what I believe will make me the happiest, (Level 4) and write down what will help me draw closer to my Creator and live a more virtuous life. Then, I make sure to include what will help me to nourish my body (Level 1), what will help me to accomplish something that means something to me (Level 2), and what will help me connect and support other people (Level 3).
So think about how you have been living your life lately. What level of happiness have you been experiencing? Think about how long this kind of happiness lasts. Reflect on how this level shapes and impacts how you live, connect with others, connect with yourself, and connect with what is beyond yourself. If you find that you have been experiencing a lot of unhappiness, try to think about the ways you might be staying at a particular level too long. Perhaps, what you thought would make you happy is now just harming you and creating mental health challenges.
If you find that you have been feeling happy, I challenge you to think if you are really happy, or if it just is an illusion. Sometimes we create a false narrative in our minds where everything is great. We have all we need. Our bellies are full. We have a roof over our heads. A family to call our own, but if we pull back the curtain, we find that we often go to bed feeling completely dissatisfied. Or we find that our lives are just filled with so much noise and distraction to keep us from ever feeling the dissatisfaction. It’s only when all the noise and distraction go away and we are alone in the silence, alone with our thoughts, that the truth usually comes raging in, dismantling the illusion so that we can see things for what they really are.
Lastly, as a therapist, I often find that people seek therapy and wonder what is wrong with them as soon as they do not feel happy. Especially in the context of Couple’s Therapy. There is this false notion that life is about being happy. It’s about always feeling “good” or comfortable emotions and if you don’t, then you’re doing something wrong or your relationship is wrong, or your career is wrong, etc. But this is a very dangerous way to live. Life is full of happiness but in order to live life fully, we have to be willing to not be happy sometimes too. Sometimes, unhappiness is a signal that something is wrong but sometimes it’s simply just a reminder that we are human. We hurt. We fail. We struggle. We get lost. We become confused. We worry. We feel unhappy, and all of it, adds richness and color to our lives.
But it’s also important to note that just because unhappiness is part of our human condition, it doesn’t mean we need to stay there either. We can always go through different levels and offer ourselves happiness again. As the levels reveal, happiness is always in reach, and the deeper you go into them, the more lasting and transformational it will be.
Wishing you a truly HAPPY new year.