Is Seeking Happiness "Selfish"?

By Christopher R. Edgar

A little while back, I was talking with a friend about happiness, and whether we were achieving it in our lives. After we'd discussed the issue for a while, my friend remarked that our conversation had little importance anyway, because there are more important things in life than being happy. I asked him what he saw as more important, and he said “helping other people.” I suggested that being happy does in fact help other people. “Nonsense,” he said. “Giving people food, clothing and shelter helps them. Being happy is only about yourself.”

Similar themes have come up in my conversations with others. Usually, the issue arises when I talk about the things I do to gain more peace and become more centered in my daily life, such as meditation, yoga and rock climbing. Some people react as if I'm being selfish and perhaps even immoral by doing these practices. “It's great that you have the luxury of being able to do things for yourself,” they say. “But I have kids to raise, a job to do and a spouse to take care of. I spend my life doing things for others.” To them, my efforts to achieve more peace and centeredness only benefit me, and use up time I could be devoting to serving others' needs.

I can identify with these people's views because I used to have the same mindset. I used to think I was morally obligated to make my happiness the lowest priority in my life. In my old job, for instance, I set no limits on the amount of work I'd accept. If someone asked if I could do a project, I would agree without even considering the non-work activities on my schedule. If accepting more tasks got in the way of seeing a significant other, visiting a relative or playing a sport, I would simply cancel the outside activity. Doing otherwise would have put my happiness above my colleagues' needs, and that would have been selfish and evil. Eventually, I even started believing that unhappiness actually made me a good person. The less happy I was, after all, the more I must be placing others' needs and desires above my own, and the more morally upstanding I must be.

My refusal to focus on my happiness created a strange result in my life. The unhappier I became, the unhappier others around me seemed to become as well. Friends and family stopped calling me as often, strangers seemed more uncomfortable when I was around, and so on. To my mind at the time, this made no sense. I was unhappy because I was so devoted to being good and helping others. I was making so many sacrifices to serve others' wants and needs, I thought--why didn't people see and appreciate that?

The answer struck me one day when I was standing in line at my local DMV waiting to renew my driver's license. I was waiting in a long line, it was hot and crowded, and I was surrounded by angry, anxious, bored and generally unhappy people. No one actually told me how dissatisfied they were--there was nearly total silence in the room--but there was no mistaking their intense dissatisfaction. The “unhappiness energy” they projected screamed louder than any words could have done. Absorbing this energy produced a tightness in my chest and throat, and an unwelcome heat in my back and shoulders. The feeling was oppressive and almost choking, and I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Suddenly, I had the sobering realization that I was projecting the same unhappiness energy to others all the time, and that they could intuitively sense it just as I did. Everywhere I went, the unhappiness I was producing--and almost celebrating--with the way I lived was making people uncomfortable, and making them want to get away from me. This was why my refusal to give any thought to my happiness seemed to be making others' lives unpleasant. I wasn't making the world a better place by being unhappy, as noble as my intentions may have been--I was actually making it worse.

This realization was a key reason why I started taking up more practices to keep myself happy. Because others sense and respond to my level of happiness, I understood, one of the best ways to serve others is to be happy. And I don't mean faking happiness, as some do when they smile and claim to be happy but are anguished, fearful or resentful on the inside. Consciously or otherwise, people can sense whether the way you're behaving is consistent with how you're really feeling. I mean actually improving the quality of your emotional life, by doing things that give you satisfaction.

And indeed I found that, when I approached my life in a peaceful and centered state, others would seem more peaceful, centered and welcoming as well. Strangers would say hello to me, where before they would quickly look away. My friends and family started contacting me more often, and my connections with them felt stronger and deeper than ever before. I could create more happiness in the world, it seemed, simply by being in a happy state. I didn't have to tell people I was feeling good, or even smile, to produce these effects--they could experience my “happiness energy” for themselves.

As I cultivated more happiness, I found myself becoming more motivated to take concrete action to help others as well. I began volunteering in a homeless shelter, preparing dinner for the men staying there and sleeping there overnight on occasion to supervise the guests. In my old mindset, the idea of doing something like that wouldn't have occurred to me. The hostility I was creating in others by walking around in a state of constant unhappiness had caused me to view the world as a hostile place. “Why would I want to do any more to help people in this hateful, uncaring world?” I used to think. “I'm already sacrificing so much, and it only seems to make people like me less.” But when I became happier, the world became a more welcoming place, and doing volunteer work started looking more desirable and fulfilling.

If you believe seeking happiness would make you “selfish,” consider the possibility that being happy actually makes others happy--and that making yourself unhappy through a life of martyrdom actually hurts others. If you want to serve others, attending to your own happiness isn't a “luxury”--it's a necessity. I don't mean to say that making yourself happy is the only way to improve the quality of others' lives. But the impact your emotional state has on the way others feel is a critical dimension of any effort to help others.

Author's Bio

Christopher R. Edgar is a success coach certified in hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming. Through his coaching business, Purpose Power Coaching, he helps professionals transition to careers aligned with their true callings. He may be reached at www.purposepowercoaching.com.

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