Why It’s Hard to Choose Real Happiness
There are two types of happiness. Are you choosing the best one?
Published in
6 min readAug 8, 2023
Most people never realize there are two types of happiness.
They strive for a beautiful partner, a perfect home, and a 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.
Aristotle 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?
