On the Definition of Happiness

Note: Page numbers are from Introduction to Great Books: Third Series, not “Happiness” itself.

            “What was it, we used to ask ourselves—that quality that she, we felt sure, misnamed? Was it courage? Was it strength, health, or high spirits? Something you could not give or take—a conundrum? A game of catch-as-catch-can?” (36)

            Throughout Mary Lavin’s short story “Happiness,” a mother named Vera asks the same question to all those around her: are you happy? It’s a constant thing with Vera, happiness. She strives for it in everything, and she strives to pass it on to others. She strives to explain its importance, and she strives to understand the people who don’t understand how important that simple thing called happiness is. Vera strives to make her mother happy, but nothing quite works (34-35). Vera strives to define and explain happiness to her constant friend and companion, Father Hugh, but he doesn’t seem to understand (42).

Vera builds her life around happiness, and she has the thought and the strength of mind to realize that happiness doesn’t depend on a lack of sorrow, or of struggle, or of pain. But her children often seem to think that she’s using the wrong word, and that happiness doesn’t quite define what she lives for. And, if you ask me, they’re quite right.

Happiness is not necessarily something that lasts. In fact, happiness, as it is defined in my mind, almost never lasts very long. “Happy” is really quite a weak word in the English vocabulary. It defines a state of mind and body rather than a state of spirit and will. Many times, as Vera pursues ultimate and constant happiness, she finds herself chasing after small, seemingly unimportant things. This is where she goes right; the greatest parts of life are, more often than not, far from grand.

Some of my “happiest” moments were short moments that simply had a greater impact on my life than they did on my watch. For instance, when I was in New York City there were many great places my family visited and many great things we saw. Mostly, though, I remember the names on the fountains at the 9/11 memorial (not the names themselves, but the feeling of them carved under my fingers) and the homeless lady who just wanted her child back. It was a custody battle, and she needed an apartment before she even had a chance in a court. I gave her a poem I wrote and told her it was the closest thing I had to the money she needed. I’ve never seen someone more quietly appreciative than that mother in that moment.

Vera, however, didn’t seem to understand that in order for a small thing to matter, it must have an impact on your heart, or otherwise someone else’s heart, and not your mind. When she ran out into the ocean to swim, she was looking for something that would cheer her and give her peace in her mind (38). She didn’t receive the peace she had hoped for; in fact, she ended up crying in her room right after (38). “What was it worth,” Vera’s daughter observed, “a happiness bought that dearly.”

One of the occurrences that might have kept Vera from understanding what she was truly seeking was an occurrence from just before the death of her husband. Vera’s husband, apparently, loved daffodils. Vera knew this, and one day when her husband was in the hospital, she noticed that daffodils were blooming everywhere around her, in every patch of grass she saw (39). She wished that her husband had the opportunity to see them.

“So on the way back to the hospital she stopped her car and pulled a great bunch—the full of her arms. ‘They took up the whole back seat,’ she said, ‘and I was so excited at the thought of walking into his room and dumping them on his bed—you know—just plomping them down so he could smell them, and feel them, and look and look!’”

            Here, Vera understood what she was striving for. Simple, pure…. She still didn’t have the right word, but she did understand the concept of what she was running after.

            The truth is, Vera wasn’t striving for happiness. Or rather, she shouldn’t have been. The word she was looking for is a shorter, simpler, word that defines something much longer lasting than “happiness.”

            The word Vera was looking for is “joy.”

            Understand, joy and happiness are far from the same thing. Happiness is something that lasts a little while; it’s something that a person can enjoy “in the moment” and forget about within the hour. Joy, however, is a constant, pure, heartfelt choice; at its best, it’s a habit. It’s something that stays with a person despite trials, despite hardships, and despite tears. It’s not a feeling, it’s a way of life. An action, almost. All of the Fruits of the Spirit are actions: Love, Joy (right there), Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-control.

            Notice a certain word that’s missing from this list.

            In the end, then, what a person should strive toward is not happiness. What a person should strive toward, and what Vera finally discovered (49), is joy.