Happiness is Not the Goal
“I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. “— Anne Frank
Those of us who studied American history are familiar with these famous words in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The pursuit of happiness.
There’s no guarantee, of course, that we WILL be happy, just that we have a right to pursue it.
But does a “right to” do something mean that you “ought to” do that thing, all the time?
Is pursuing and attaining happiness the goal of life?
The “Chinese Holocaust”
Wars are horrible, evil things, the more so when you are in the middle of one.
But when the smoke has cleared, and enough years passed, war (history) is a fascinating teacher.
Take the Rape of Nanking, for instance.
During World War II, Japanese forces invaded the Chinese mainland, took over the capitol (called “Nanking” at the time) and and raped, mutilated, and slaughtered every Chinese citizen they could find — men and women, young and old.
During the massacre, however, fifteen brave foreigners (American, British, Danish, and German) refused to go home.
They stayed in Nanking and created a Safety Zone to shelter as many locals as they could. Every Chinese citizen who did not make it to the Safety Zone in time did not survive the carnage.
The makeshift “International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone” ended up saving a quarter of a million lives.
These brave men and women of the International Committee took in refugees, treated broken bodies, scoured the streets for survivors, and stood up to soldiers who tried to breach the wall to steal women for rape.
Their heroism was beyond words.
But so was their suffering.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
“It is not until we tour the city that we learn the extent of destruction. We come across corpses every 100 to 200 yards.” — John Rabe
It is not healthy for people to have to deal with the stress and witness the cruelty that the members of the International Committee saw every day.
It kills the spirit to see human beings brutalizing each other. It rips the soul to see mutilated bodies dumped like trash in the streets. It stakes the heart to see evidence of unspeakably vile acts scattered everywhere.
One would think that the self-sacrificial spirit with which these foreigners used their lives to protect others ought to be rewarded. That the goodness of their actions should be a safeguard against the devastating side effects of war.
But real life is not karmic.
After the war, many of these most selfless heroes continued to suffer:
- John Rabe, the German Nazi leader of the International Committee, spent his later life in extreme poverty…until the surviving citizens of Nanking heard of his plight and scrounged up some money to buy food for the Rabe family.
- Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary and educator who risked her life to protect the civilians hiding in her school, broke under the stress and committed suicide when she returned to the US.
- Dr. Robert Wilson, who tirelessly treated many victims of the Rape later suffered mental collapse, seizures, nightmares, and visual problems that forced him to return to the US in 1940. He never fully recovered.
It doesn’t seem fair, that these people who did the right thing and sacrificed their time, health, and happiness to do so, should not be rewarded for what they did.
Some of them were recognized, but much of the recognition was too little, too late. And recognition and praise does not remove PTSD, heal minds or bodies, or bring people back from the dead.
Yet does that mean that they SHOULD NOT have done what they did?
That they should have run from Nanking like the rest of their countrymen, as the Japanese army approached?
Perhaps.
Perhaps, had they done so, life would have turned out better for them.
Perhaps Rabe would not have been so poor, or Vautrin would not have killed herself, or Wilson’s health would not have collapsed.
Perhaps they would have been happier.
But had they not done what they did, it is likely that there would be 250,000 more unidentified dead bodies buried in mass graves in Nanking today, not to mention millions of people — descendants of the Nanking survivors — who would not exist at all.
The Purpose of Life Isn’t Mere Happiness
“For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.” — Simon Wiesenthal
A historian once said that it isn’t only German Nazis who ought to be ashamed of the Holocaust, but all of the European neighbors who ignored or collaborated with the Nazis who were systematically annihilating Jews.
After all, many European Jews did not look “overtly Jewish.” The Nazis would not have been able to distinguish many of them merely by looks.
It was because the Jews’ neighbors and countrymen failed to protect them, and actively worked with German occupiers, that the Nazis were able to get their hands on so many non-German Jews.
It’s easy to look at these neighbors, these ordinary people from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, etc., and blame them for their heartlessness.
It’s easy to think, “I would never have done something like that! Of course I would protect my neighbors!”
But would you, really?
Sometimes, all it takes for one person to die is for another person to look the other way while the first person is being rounded up from ghetto to cattle car to death camp.
And for the people who choose to look, sometimes they see more than they want to.
And for those who choose to act, sometimes the consequences are worse than they imagine.
During the days of the Nazi regime, for instance, the penalty for helping a Jewish refugee was anything from prison to your death to the death of your entire family.
If people wanted to preserve their own life and happiness, they HAD to not-look. They had to not-act.
And that is exactly what most people did.
Can you blame them?
If the point of life is preservation of your own happiness, then that is what you must do:
Save yourself. Save those you love. Turn your eyes from the evil in the world. Do not look, do not act, do not remember.
But that is not the point of life.
If Happiness is Not the Point, Then What Is?
This life is a training ground.
Training what?
Your character.
Why?
Because it’s the only thing that lasts. Your body will not last. Your achievements will not last. The memory of you will not last. The only thing of you that lasts is your core, what makes you who you are —y our true identity.
Your truest identity is not how you look or what you do for a living or what you like or your abilities/skills/experiences.
Your truest identity lies in your character — Those mental and moral qualities that are distinctive to each individual.
And those qualities come from the choices you make — choices to do what you know is right even if…ESPECIALLY if…you don’t feel like it.
When you do the right thing, you may not always be recognized or rewarded in this life.
But you have to learn to do the right thing, even if it does not make you happy in the short term.
Don’t try to make yourself UNhappy on purpose, of course. But don’t focus on happiness. It is not the goal. It will lead you off the right path.
Why Should I be “Good” Instead of Happy?
That’s a very good question.
And it depends on some deep, philosophical worldview questions. Namely, this one:
Is this life all there is?
If this life is all there is, and there is nothing beyond this, then happiness SHOULD be your ultimate objective.
But it’s not, and it shouldn’t.
I won’t go into all the philosophical, logical, and scientific reasonings behind why this life is NOT all there is (that would require writing a book, and many books have already been written on this topic), but here’s a thought:
Most people already realize that living selfishly does not actually produce true, lasting happiness.
You already intuitively know that being selfless and giving is more likely to make you truly happy than thinking only about yourself…which is counterintuitive, because if this life is all there is, you SHOULD only want to please yourself in any way possible durinng your meaningless, short existence.
Pleasing yourself alone SHOULD make you happier than thinking about others.
Being selfless and promoting other people’s good SHOULD NOT produce one iota of benefit (material or immaterial) for us.
Yet you know by experience that it does.
We are beings who find meaning, well-being, and even happiness in others’ well-being and happiness. Even if others’ happiness costs us.
- We are parents who are willing — even eager — to suffer and die for our children.
- We are friends who are willing — even eager — to stay up all night comforting a grieving friend.
- We are firemen who are willing — even eager — to risk our lives to run into a burning tower on 9/11 just because there is A TINY CHANCE we MIGHT be able to save a stranger’s life.
The happiest people ACT AS IF there is more to life than this one existence, whether or not they believe there is one.
Why?
Who are your heroes?
When we look at rich, hedonistic celebrities, we sometimes envy their lifestyles. We laugh at their jokes, collect their images, and wish some of their fame and fortune might rub off on us.
Yet deep down, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we don’t truly admire these people most. We envy them, but we don’t honor them. They may be our “idols,” but they are not our “heroes.”
(Which is partly why even celebrities don’t spend all their time basking in the glow of fame, but make an effort to support philanthropies to “help others.”)
Insntead, we honor and revere heroes like John Rabe, Dr. Wilson, Minnie Vautrin — people who put others ahead of themselves. People who sacrificed their own comfort and safety to save the lives of strangers.
They didn’t save lives because they knew they’d be honored for it in a few decades.
They did it because it was the right thing to do.
Even though their actions led to poverty, mental collapse, and suicide in this life, their sacrifices were not in vain.
Not for the hundreds of thousands they saved, not for people today who are hearing their stories, and not for themselves.
Because this life isn’t all there is. So though Rabe, Wilson, and Vautrin, and so many more like them may not have been able to see any meaningful reward for their self-sacrificial actions in their lifetime here…
I believe that one day, they will.
Ready to be a Brilliant Writer?
I’ve created The Brilliant Writer Checklist to help you clarify your message, reach more readers, and change the world with your words.
