Questions that Inspire Greater Happiness
Faustin asks some fascinating, challenging questions:
These are a few of my favorite questions. I believe, when your boots hit the ground, your answers to these questions matter.
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Is life an exciting adventure to be welcomed?
Is happiness possible?
Can we, as humans, understand the world around us? Thus, can we effectively cope with its challenges?
Can human relations be healthy? Are they generally mutually beneficial?
Can we wake up in the morning, confident that there are other good people in the world, doing fascinating things, providing products and services that further our lives, our goals, our happiness, and should we thus embrace their freedom and productivity?
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Finally, I tend to judge a writer, thinker, intellectual, by his answers to these questions.
I find these questions beautiful, for a couple reasons.
First, they economically draw the line between an optimistic or romantic outlook on life, and the pessimistic naturalism that is so common in modern times. In a way, they encapsulate what Ayn Rand (perhaps ill-advisedly) called the “benevolent universe premise.”
Second, they inspire me to want to be even more happy. They cause me to examine the metaphysical assumptions — assumptions about reality and human nature — that shape my own expectations of how happy I can be. And they remind me that there’s still room to grow.
And yet... There are many of us who could honestly answer “Yes” to all of the above questions, and yet are not as happy as we could be, on a day-to-day basis.
And to me, that suggests a whole ’nother list of useful questions to be asking, in the same conversation. For it is one thing to believe that happiness is possible, and it is another thing to actually pursue the practices that make you a happy person.
And so I have some more questions to add, for anyone who feels up to the challenge:
How happy are you now, on a scale of 1 to 10?
What stops you from being at least a 9?
Do you believe that the obstacles to your happiness are internal or external? Are they things under your control, or out of your control?
Are your relationships as healthy as they could be? Why not?
What could you do now — not next week or later today, but right now — that would make you appreciably happier inside?
If acting on your beliefs is as important as holding them, then our answers to these questions are at least as important as our answers to the first set of questions above.
Hi Josh! As always it’s wonderful to contact you again, and as always, too seldom, too little.
I really like your amplification of the questions — you’ve adapted them well as a springboard for a more practical and efficacious exercise. Excellent.
Here are my answers, 1-5:
1. 7/10
2. Current malaise is temporary, just went through a crushing loss of Olga; and unusual stressors have been relentless the last few months: moving multiple times, financial insecurity, and trying to adjust to life — alone — in Russia.
3. Obstacles are both internal and external, but I don’t feel I have much control over them. I do feel a great deal of peace and contentment with who I am and where I’m at, and I really appreciate the external struggles and my work.
4. No, I need to communicate more with the people close to me: I need to stop and take time to nurture the garden I have.
5. Right now: go running.
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