What if the Central Work of Our Lives is to be Really Happy?

First published on October 21, 2020

As part of a course I'm taking at the moment, I was recently watching a conversation between Fred Kofman and James Flaherty. As part of the conversation, Kofman and Flaherty asked each other the question, 'What is the central work of our lives?'

Kofman, when his turn came, answered: 'To be really happy.' He paused. 'But not really happy compared to really unhappy; really happy as opposed to unreally happy.'

The reason this line got a laugh is, of course, because it is not the conclusion we were expecting. But the reason it has stayed with me is because it is surprising in a deep and important way.

It reminded me of an insight I had previously had - that the worst possible outcome of a job interview would be to not be yourself and then get the job. The real and the true are important; very important.

Much of the time, many of us distract ourselves from our unhappiness and give ourselves the impression of happiness. I do this with things like television, caffeine, alcohol, sugar, social media and more. I get hormonal hits with almost any of these things. I notice myself doing it on a regular basis, going in search of dopamine from LinkedIn or Tweetdeck or elsewhere.

But this isn't real happiness. This is unreal happiness.

What, then, is real happiness? What is true happiness?

I was speaking to a friend of mine this weekend. Out in the park, he asked, 'Does death ever come up with your clients?' And the answer, of course, was yes. Death comes up. More than that, I sometimes bring it up, so important do I think that conversation is. And when I do, the combination of things that matter to people, that would lead to an absence of sadness at the end of our lives, is relatively small. Whilst each expression of these things, the things that really matter to us, is beautiful and touching and unique to the human in front of me, the total of what I have learned from these conversations could probably be summed up like this: people, experiences and a sense of inner peace. To expand on this: quality relationships with those I love, more of the experiences that make me feel alive, and a sense that I have acted in line with my values and made a contribution to the world.

I don't know, for sure, if those things give us Real Happiness, although I suspect that they do.

But I have this sense much more strongly: I would far rather have a sense of Real Unhappiness, with all its pain, than to be in a sense of Unreal Happiness or - worse still - Unreal Unhappiness. There is something about sadness, sweet, real, true sadness, which fills me up almost as much as happiness does. It connects me to the moment, to my humanity, to the fact that I am alive.

If I am honest, it doesn't feel like I manage to be really or truly present or happy very often. But occasionally I catch moments of it, occasionally longer. They are beautiful and clear, and I wish they were with me, I wish they could stay with me. And, yes, they tend to come from people, and experiences, and a sense that I have acted in line with my values and made a contribution.