Happiness Knows No Bounds

When my students ask me what a limit is, I tell them that a limit is a movement. A movement that never ends. Maybe be a movement towards “having something”. But luck knows no bounds.

Most parents tell their kids that they need to be like the ant and they dislike the cricket. The cricket has been the lazy one in history, of course, but the future is unpredictable and you never know how many resources it will take to overcome obstacles. Children are often not yet able to understand the complexity of this philosophy and see knowledge as an opportunity. They see in him more of an instrument to pass exams and in this way bring joy to their parents.

That will change when they first fall in love. Then they will want to know everything. You will be fascinated by the opportunity to discover new things. In this way love becomes the engine of knowledge, which asymptotically approaches the formula of happiness to a maximum, but which can never be achieved. It is a movement that intensifies with the idealization that inevitably occurs at this early age.

“Thousands of candles can be lit by one candle, and that candle does not shorten the life of that candle. Happiness is never shortened when shared. “

Buddha

Happiness and the need to have fun

Every model is renewed from time to time and becomes obsolete. It stops parading and ends up as a museum piece that the passers-by look at, showing us the existence of this constant movement.

We live in a society that constantly demands consumption. We are encouraged to maintain or even improve our quality of life by acquiring more and more. Money uses the need created in this way and attracts us. It seduces our bodies, our dignity, and our selfless motives. Money has an attraction that few can resist and for which many sell their souls to the devil.

Money becomes a carrot that you hold in front of the donkey. We may well go where our fellow human beings go, but they go where the money takes them. The fact that someone is doing a certain activity becomes a valid justification for others to do the same. This has led many people in politics and sports to abuse their power and their bodies just to move forward. It is also what made the people of the Third Reich follow the whims of a sick man and murderer. “If everyone else goes there, it is sure to be the path to happiness,”   was the common assumption. “And if that’s the case, why shouldn’t we follow him?”

Do we know better today?

Another drive, and at the same time a source of dissatisfaction with happiness, is pleasure. The desire to receive satisfaction keeps us on guard. He makes us prefer the temporary things to the permanent ones. It makes us seek short-lived pleasures rather than lasting happiness. This is how pleasure seduces our fragility: enjoy today because you may not have tomorrow.

But who can throttle this drive? The newspapers are full of misery and give little hope for tomorrow.

Moving forward – sensibly

So we get to the point where we don’t care if we die as long as we can satisfy our cravings for pleasure. But that goes against the moral of the fable of the ant and the cricket? Against the idea of ​​piling up just in case we need it later. This is how neuroticism appears, an anarchic behavior that breaks other people. In all their striving to move forward, we have forgotten our common sense … and common sense. This is what happens when we don’t know whether to choose responsibility or enjoyment.

We forget the common sense that motivates us to keep going when things get complicated. That gives us reasons that have little to do with money and a lot to do with our true worth and that of our fellow human beings. Recall the importance of this common sense by thinking of the famous work by Viktor Frankl, in which he described how common sense, whether correct or correct, made people survive appalling conditions in concentration camps. Without him, many would certainly have given up.

Happiness as a virtue

A more attractive definition of happiness is what it interprets as virtue. It anchors us in the here and now and lets us reflect on our goals, thanks, forgiveness and love. About elements that make up the past, present and future of our being, that ensure a happy ending, the opportunity to participate in the present and that give us hope for the future.

The desire for knowledge also lies on this path. To get to know others, but also to get to know ourselves. It is further knowledge that will never end, but one that gives peace of mind and security. When we walk this path through life, we find questions and a few answers as well. Our shadow will become our happiness. The shadow that shows us the difference between the need to have and the need to be.

Indeed, the search for happiness becomes one for a limit in infinity. Happiness is movement.