The Meaning of Life (No, Really)

A blog is a pretty short format for delving into complex issues, so I'm just going to cut to the chase. I submit that the meaning of life is:

Happiness.

Or, to state it another way, happiness is meaning. After all, what is happiness for, if not to let us know that we're on the right track? This may seem obvious--most of us devote our lives to the pursuit of happiness, true enough. Yet we focus our efforts on red herrings like wealth, fame, and physical beauty. If all that were enough, last year might have seen Sylvia Plath reading a poem at Kurt Cobain's 40th birthday party. Alas...

So, if these things cannot produce happiness, what can? To answer this question, I have taken an extremely unscientific appraisal of all the happy people I've ever known, and found only one common denominator: to achieve true happiness, you must be a positive force. That is, the world must be better with you than without you.

But wait--there are all sorts of terrible people walking around with big grins on their faces. Why do they get to be happy? Well, the short answer is: they don't. Imagine for a moment that happiness has two components, joy and contentment. Anyone can experience joy, even the wicked. Without contentment, however, there is no true happiness, and there is no contentment in a negative life; the conscience sees to that. What's more, even joy is eroded in a life without contentment. I suppose this is what compels the robber barons of our time to throw $2,000,000 parties and build 100,000 square foot houses. They must continually--and uselessly--up the ante.

If there is a spectrum to what sort of effect each of us has on the world around us--with genocidal maniacs on one end and Nobel Peace Prize winners on the other--most of us bunch up around the middle. On the one hand, your car may pollute the air, but on the other hand you make your dog happy. Things balance out. So push toward the positive, just a little, and reap the rewards. There is nothing random about happiness; nor is there a secret to it. If you have done things you wish you hadn't, mitigate them by doing things you wish you had. Pay it forward, pay it back, and bask in the glow.