Why It's Hard to Choose Real Happiness
Most people never realize there are two types of happiness.
They strive for a beautiful partner, perfect home, and snappy car. When these externals come together, they believe they’ll finally be happy.
But is this the best form of happiness to pin your hopes on?
The Greeks identified two types of happiness, which they called “hedonia” and “eudaemonia.”
Hedonia means the pursuit of pleasure-driven happiness. At its core is the belief that positive emotional states derive from external pleasures like the ones mentioned above as well as from the avoidance of pain.
Eudaemonia, in contrast, refers to a deeper sense of well-being and fulfillment that comes from living a meaningful and purposeful life.
Aristole believed eudaemonia was the ultimate goal of a human life. He said it can be achieved through the development of virtues and the cultivation of one’s full potential.
It seems simple, doesn’t it?
But yet we choose hedonic pleasure over eudaemonia time and again, me included.
Why?
The lure of distractions
For example, I want to meditate more.
I know the regular practice of mindfulness enhances my mental health and well-being. It calms my nervous system, a fact verified by science, and uplifts my spirit too. It also strengthens my attention skills, which makes me more focused and productive in day to day life.
Through mindfulness meditation, my own mind becomes the source of my well-being rather than external pleasures—the very definition of the more lasting form of happiness called eudaemonia.
In contrast, when an hedonic activity stops, for the most part, the happiness derived from it disappears too. Shopping, a delicious meal, blissful sex—none of those activities brings a deeper, more lasting happiness.
Hedonic pleasure can even lead to more suffering. Shopping too much can dig you into credit card debt, a rich meal can end up in tummy trouble, and blissful sex can leave you with an STD.
Hedonic pleasure can make you crave more and indulge more too because it leaves constant gaps in happiness.
Since I know I’m more likely to establish a deeper and more lasting sense of happiness from regular mindfulness meditation than I will from watching Penny the Talking Cat videos on YouTube, you’d think I’d already be a mindfulness rockstar.
Hedonic pleasure can make you crave more and indulge more too because it leaves constant gaps in happiness.
I do meditate every single day by the way. I’m not a complete loser.
But I want to meditate more. I know from both my study and personal experience, it takes a substantial amount of meditation time to bring about greater calm in the mind.
Yet I still find it difficult to detach from the allure of hedonic distractions. Even a creative urge can prematurely pull me off the meditation cushion, demanding that I write right now.
That’s not to say hedonic pleasure is automatically hedonistic and all bad. We need the basic comforts of life like food, clothing, and shelter to survive. We need medical care and education, and why not some blissful sex too?
Social connection is also essential to our well-being. A 2018 study found that social isolation can contribute to cognitive decline, depression, and insomnia. And other researchers have found social isolation can significantly increase the chances of death.
But if you think external pleasure is the primary source of happiness, you’ll be disappointed again and again.
For me, it comes down to trauma
Why is it so hard to primarily choose activities that bring lasting happiness? Why do I waste time watching Penny the Talking Cat when I could be chalking up my meditation miles?
I’ve discovered it relates to trauma, at least for me. It may not come down to trauma for you. But I think you’ll find your adult choices about happiness often involve dysfunctional patterns set in early childhood.
Your adult choices about happiness often involve dysfunctional patterns set in early childhood.
This is how my aversion to meditation developed.
I worked hard for my spiritual teacher for more than a decade. Eventually, he decided it was time to bring a younger crew onboard.
As a result, I was terminated. I had seen this coming, but gruesome can barely describe the actual experience.
Instead of the gold watch and celebration of my achievements, he denigrated me in front of others during an hour-long termination session. He painstakingly listed all my flaws and didn’t share a single positive word. My protestations angered him, and made him all the more vicious.
He acted in these harsh ways, he claimed, to destroy our ego clinging, an obstacle on the spiritual path. But since I still had plenty of ego grasping, his barbs tore me apart. I cried and cried and cried.
So embroiled in my pain, I didn’t think for a moment about what would come next in my life.
But he and one of the brilliant younger ones decided my future for me. He directed me to enter into a three to six month solitary retreat.
I felt shocked someone else would decide my future like this. But, I didn’t feel I could disobey my spiritual teacher.
You might think I’d feel thrilled at the prospect of a spiritual retreat after having worked so hard for so long. But I felt just the opposite.
Anxiety and dread permeated my heart. I would be cut off from everyone and everything I had known to date. I would be still instead of my usual busy. It wasn’t my choice. I was being forced against my will.
In a recent therapy session, I discovered that experience (along with earlier ones) embedded a degree of trauma within me that manifests as this resistance to more meditation.
Understandably, I choose hedonia over eudaemonia in this regard. I have a crippling fear of being forcibly cut off from everyone and everything.
Concluding thoughts
If it was easy to choose real happiness, eudaemonia, we all would, wouldn’t we?
But most people choose hedonia because that’s all they know. They’ve been conditioned from early childhood to believe happiness comes from external pleasures thanks to family, society, and marketing campaigns.
But even when you’re well aware of the concept of eudaemonia and in one sense, want it more than anything else, the lure of hedonia can be irresistibly strong.
If it was easy to choose real happiness, eudaemonia, we all would, wouldn’t we?
While other factors may come into play like willpower and discipline, I believe we often favor hedonia due to survival strategies we adopted as children.
These strategies were meant to protect us emotionally (and sometimes physically). But now in adulthood, the patterns are so ingrained that they take precedence over activities that bring about genuine happiness.
These unconscious and long-held fears and needs direct our lives. When challenged, they can feel raw, primal, and insurmountable.
For example, the need to please others may supersede your desire for v because it’s connected to your survival even as an adult. The same can be true with a fear of being alone or the need to drive yourself to succeed.
Take a moment to think about a recurring emotional or mental pattern that leads you into hedonic activities and away from eudaemonia.
It’s not enough to know about eudaemonia.
If you truly want to experience eudaemonia, a deeper sense of well-being and fulfillment, you have to address whatever dysfunctional mental and emotional patterns get in its way.
By the end of that therapy session, I had relaxed into a meditative state. I didn’t feel an impulse to get up and get busy. Instead, I melted further into calm awareness—no longer feeling forced or that I must meditate.
A new seed had been planted. May it grow and grow! I hope you will plant new seeds too and in time, achieve the deeper and last happiness you so deserve.
Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious! Don’t forget to sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self.
You might also like to check out my Self-Care Shop. May you be happy, well, and safe – always. With love, Sandra
