The International Day of Happiness is a day celebrated annually on March 20 since 2013, established by the United Nations Assembly (UN) with the aim of recognizing the pursuit of happiness and well-being as universal aspirations in life. of human beings and emphasize the importance of their inclusion in government policies.
In his book The Art of Happiness the Dalai Lama writes that “the purpose of our life is to seek happiness.” In the society we live in, we tend to seek it through consumption; We buy and believe that we need to acquire material goods for the long-awaited happiness: a bigger house, the latest car model or the most advanced technology become the means by which we can achieve it.
However, most of the things we think we need to be happy we neither need nor will make us happy. The only thing they will do is increase a feeling of permanent dissatisfaction which will continue to drive us to look for it in the wrong direction. This feeling is linked to a lack of fullness, to the feeling that something is missing, to not feeling complete. Nothing gives us lasting satisfaction and that is why we embark on this search. However, without realizing it, the more we pursue it, the further we move away from it.
We focus our attention on what we need to be happy instead of appreciating and being grateful for what we already have to be happy. From this perspective of constant need, the search becomes endless because we always perceive that we are missing something. One of the reasons why happiness is ephemeral is that, once we have obtained what we long for, we quickly look for something else. It is a happiness that soon fades away. On the other hand, if we pay attention to what we do have and feel gratitude for it, any everyday scenario can lead us to experience it.
Gratitude emerges as the antidote that counteracts the harmful effects of consumption-based happiness. Gratitude towards aspects such as family, work, health or on a more subtle level, gratitude towards our heart that allows us to live, towards the air we can breathe and towards the earth that supports us as we walk. By giving thanks for the little things that make up our daily lives, we replace the “I need more to be happy” with “I have enough to be happy.”
“It is not the happiest who has the most, but the one who needs the least” is a quote attributed to Saint Augustine of Hippo, a 4th century Christian theologian and philosopher, which points in the opposite direction. In the set of rules that he drafted to organize the life of the community when he founded the Tagaste monastery, he wrote: “[…] the happier… the less they need.” This reflection leads us to question whether we really need everything we think we need to be happy.
However, there are a series of needs that are not related to consumerism and that, as psychologist Abraham Maslow described, must be satisfied in a hierarchical order to achieve fulfillment and happiness. In 1954 he proposed the psychological theory of Human Needs in which he established five levels of basic needs: physiological, security, social, esteem and self-actualization.
These needs are represented in a pyramid, where the most basic are at the base and the highest at the top. As the needs of one level are met, the person can move to the next.
First of all, physiological needs are the most fundamental and refer to the satisfaction of basic physical needs, such as hunger, thirst, sleep and sexuality. Once these are satisfied, the person moves on to the next needs, those of security, which include the search for a roof, protection and stability. As they are met, social and belonging needs emerge. These include relationships, friendship, love, and a sense of protection and stability. If they are met, then social and belonging needs emerge and these include relationships, friendship, love and the sense of being part of a group or community. When we have them covered, esteem needs arise, which refer to respect, recognition and appreciation of oneself. That is, to have confidence in our abilities and achievements and to feel secure in our worth.
Once you exceed that level you reach the top of the pyramid, where the needs for self-actualization are found. They represent the desire to achieve a sense of personal fulfillment. That is, discovering yourself being what you essentially are, at the ultimate level. Being at the top, we get to experience what Maslow called the peak experiences. In his book Religions, Values ??and Peak Experiences he describes them as “a state of unity with mystical characteristics; an experience in which time tends to fade away and the overwhelming feeling makes it seem that all needs have been met.”
Depending on where we focus our attention, the search for happiness can become a labyrinth in which we get lost among so many unnecessary needs to consume. Or, it can become a path that guides us towards discovering beauty in the small things and towards cultivating meaningful relationships, with ourselves, with others and/or with what transcends us. Ultimately, happiness lies in our ability to appreciate and value what really matters in life.
Maria Rufino is a doctor in Psychology
