Defining Happiness

Tuesday, May 12, 2009



One of the purposes of WorkPuzzle is to facilitate a dialog concerning what makes people flourish in their work.  Typically, we address this topic from a scientific perspective.


Charles-murphay Last week, I ran across the transcript of a speech given by Dr. Charles Murray at the 2009 Irving Kristol Lecture in Washington DC.  Dr. Murray is a social scientist and author who is most famously known for his controversial book, The Bell Curve (1994),that discusses the role of intelligence (IQ) in American Culture.


Recently, Dr. Murray has been studying happiness.  He approaches the topic from a government/public policy perspective, and much of what he says is probably beyond the interest of the general public.  You’re welcome to read the whole speech, but I thought it would be helpful to highlight a couple of passages that would liven our WorkPuzzle discussion.


1.  Dr. Murray does a great job of defining happiness:


“I start from this premise:  A human life can have transcendent meaning, with transcendence defined either by one of the world’s great religions or one of the world’s great secular philosophies.  If transcendence is too big a word, let me put it another way:  I suspect that almost all of you agree that the phrase “a life well-lived” has meaning.  That’s the phrase I’ll use from now on.

And since happiness is a word that gets thrown around too casually, the phrase I’ll use from now on is “deep satisfactions.”  I’m talking about the kinds of things that we look back upon when we reach old age and let us decide that we can be proud of who we have been and what we have done.  Or not.

To become a source of deep satisfaction, a human activity has to meet some stringent requirements.  It has to have been important (we don’t get deep satisfaction from trivial things).  You have to have put a lot of effort into it (hence the cliché “nothing worth having comes easily”).  And you have to have been responsible for the consequences.”


2.  Dr. Murray identifies the arenas in life where happiness are derived:


“There aren’t many activities in life that can satisfy those three requirements.  Having been a good parent.  That qualifies.  A good marriage.  That qualifies.  Having been a good neighbor and good friend to those whose lives intersected with yours.  That qualifies.  And having been really good at something–good at something that drew the most from your abilities.  That qualifies.

Let me put it formally:  If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life, the answer is that there are just four:  family, community, vocation, and faith.  Two clarifications:  “Community” can embrace people who are scattered geographically.  “Vocation” can include avocations or causes.

It is not necessary for any individual to make use of all four institutions, nor do I array them in a hierarchy.  I merely assert that these four are all there are.  The stuff of life–the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one’s personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships–coping with life as it exists around us in all its richness–occurs within those four institutions.”


If you have the responsibility of coaching someone, these definitions can be very helpful in coming to a common understanding concerning the nature of happiness in a person’s life.  It is also useful  to have a framework for positioning work (vocation) among the other significant areas from which happiness can be derived.