Episode # 0102 The Meaning of Life--Happiness

In this blog, we’ll talk about the Meaning of Life, Happiness, what that means and what you can start doing right now to achieve it.

You can find a podcast version of this blog article on our website or iTunes.

If you want to dive in to the issue of leadership, you can get my book, “On Leadership, What’s Broken in Our Society and How We Fix It” on Amazon.com.
What is Happiness?
If you ask people what they want in life, they’ll almost always tell you that they want Happiness. Isn’t that what we all want? Isn’t the meaning of life Happiness? But that always gives rise to the next questions: What is happiness and how do we get it?

And that’s usually as far as we go in the discussion. Talking about what Happiness is and how we might achieve it gets too complicated too quickly. Is it about having money? How much money? Being healthy? Living a long time? Being with the person you love? Owning a Ferrari? The Dodgers finally winning a World Series? Are those the things that Happiness is about?

If you’ve had a few philosophy classes, the question of Happiness can get buried in all sorts of technical distinctions between happiness and joy and thriving and flourishing and whatever. A great topic for a few beers at the pub or a late-night dorm discussion gets quickly lost in philosophical technicalities.

Besides, who has time to think about happiness when we are struggling to make it to our next pay check, get the mortgage paid and get the kids from school to their sports practices. Most of us are too worried about keeping our jobs and getting our kids into college. Who has time to think about Happiness in life when we’re just trying to survive in life?

Life is complicated and high-speed and overwhelming. But we can fix that. What if we had a simple way of understanding the meaning of life—Happiness—and some straightforward strategies to get there? What if we could do things today that helped us be happy through the rest of our lives?

Let me tell you the story of a guy who grew up in southern California. A few people had put together a concept to make and sell high-quality baseball cards, but they needed some help. So, one of them brought in his high school buddy, Richard, as an investor and accountant.

Over the next 10 years, Richard built the company into a giant. He became a billionaire who also owned a charter jet company. Richard was a guy who had it all: business success. Fame. Boatloads of money. Airplanes and billionaire status.

But he died at the age of 59. Alcohol poisoning. He was suffering from addiction and alcohol dementia. In his climb to becoming a billionaire he had cheated partners and lost many of his old and close friends. He had destroyed most of the important relationships in his life. His billionaire status and business success did not prevent him from drinking himself to death, apparently deeply unhappy.

Let’s contrast that with the story of a woman from a small town in Alabama. She grew up in a simple house with perhaps three rooms. She left home at the age of 18 the day after her high school graduation. She moved to the state capital and found a job. Eventually she met the man who became her husband. He was moving from job to job, not making much money. They got married and he became a union tradesman Between the two of them, they made a modest living.

She had challenges in life. She lost her only son shortly after he was born. She raised her two daughters while her husband was away for long periods on construction jobs. For the last five years of her life she battled health problems that had her in and out of the hospital. The last 18 months of her life were quite hard and painful before she passed away in the spring of 2017.

Those close to Anne will tell you that she died happy. Despite the life challenges and suffering, she was happy because she had close, loving relationships in her life. With her husband of 57 years. With her daughter and grandchildren.