There can be no road to happiness if I don't know my destination

"To live happily, my brother Gallio, is the desire of all men, but their minds are blinded to a clear vision of just what it is that makes life happy; and so far from its being easy to attain the happy life, the more eagerly a man strives to reach it, the farther he recedes from it if he has made a mistake in the road; for when it leads in the opposite direction, his very speed will increase the distance that separates him."

---Seneca the Younger, On the Happy Life, Book 1

In over twenty years as a teacher, I have especially enjoyed the classes where I can discuss with students, of any age, what is truly most important of all, their happiness.

I usually employ Book 1 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as a jumping-off point, but the idea is equally at home in the philosophy of Stoicism, as Seneca's words make clear.

Whatever term we may use for it, we will all agree that we want to be happy, the one thing we desire above all else, and for the sake of which we do all other things. It is our end, our goal, our destination.

The problem, however, is simply this: how am I to achieve this goal if I don't fully understand what happiness is? Is the shotgun approach, the random draw of the card, or stumbling around in a dark room really going to cut it?

I cannot arrive at my destination if I don't even know what my destination is, and if I don't know where I am going, I will never know if I am on the right road. It reminds me of being lost in the winding streets of downtown Boston, where you need to look like a tourist with a map glued to your face if you weren't born and raised there.

In our world of gratification, many might say that pleasure is happiness. In our world of status and position, many might consider it to be honor. In our world of greed, many might consider it to be wealth or power. For the Stoic, as for the Aristotelian, such things can never be complete ends. Our human nature is defined not by what we get from the world, but how fully we act and live with virtue.

To define myself by the pleasure, honor, or wealth outside of me is a passive dependence upon what is beyond my control and it rests only in things other than myself.  To rely on the excellence of my own character, however, is fully my own and depends solely on my own activity.

An inanimate object follows Nature ruled by physical laws, while a plant or animal follows Nature ruled by instinct and passion, but a man follows Nature through reason and will. My dignity is in what I do, not in what is done to me.

My students always struggle with this, and that is a very good thing. Philosophy asks them what is most important in life so we can know how to get there. They may begin, as well do, with blind assumptions, proceed into confusion and even despair, but if they only choose to apply themselves to the question, not merely on an academic but on a personal level, the road map will slowly begin to take shape.

Written on 2/6/2016

Image: Robert Zünd, The Road to Emmaus, 1877