How to Live a Happy Life

In the current state of our system of K-12 education, those who are professionally responsible for the lives of our children are derelict in their duties as adults.  They impart to our students neither the knowledge-intensive education nor the moral instruction that young people look to their elders to provide.  

 

I have in many places on this blog explained how those who purport to be professionals in the field of education are not anywhere close to being professionals of the caliber that we expect from doctors and lawyers, and how the field of education as presented in departments, schools, and colleges of education on university campuses is a sham---  the weakest academic component of any university organization, dominated by professors who promote a debased ideology while revealing themselves to be the least philosophically astute of anyone occupying the professorial role in the university departmental scheme.

 

Thus we have systems of K-12 education that fail to impart the knowledge and skill sets that define excellence in education.

 

Then, as to the matter of morality, the culprits lie in the general public of a society that proceeds on the basis of largely immoral and dissolute behavior, in the absence of any understanding the meaning of life.

 

Unhappy adults cannot present to young people any vision of happiness.

 

Elders who lack any grasp of the meaning of life cannot convey a sense of meaning to the children who look to them for guidance.

 

Young people are never the problem.

 

Adults are the problem.

 

The result is the current state of our society---  to be sure, in the form of leadership all the way to the apex of the presidency---   but with the society itself being that from which such leadership springs.

 

We must go to the root and rethink everything.

 

This will not require a lot of verbiage.  People tend to talk important matters into obscure and remote corners, in a process of obfuscation over clarity, pretending that solutions are difficult to find.  Actually, solutions are often easily identified and readily apparent;  it is the doing on the basis of essential principles that is difficult.

 

Isaac Newton defined succinctly his three laws of motion. 

 

Einstein aimed for elegant simplicity in his formulation of energy as equaling mass times the velocity of light squared.

 

The simplicity of elegantly presented first principles must abide in our definitions of educational excellence, happiness, and meaning.

 

Consider below the essentials of meaning and the fundamentals of the happiness that results when meaning is understood:

 

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The meaning of life is the rendering of loving service to others.

 

Abraham Maslow, in his own simply elegant formulation, conveyed that human beings seek first to fulfill their biological needs, attain a sense of security, feel loved, and gain self-esteem---  before then becoming self-actualized in living life at the highest level.

 

Through my own filter, this means that we acknowledge that to establish the mental space for contemplating higher-order concerns, we feel well-fed and physically safe.  But even the third and fourth aspects of the Maslow formulation (love and self-esteem) at any satisfying level of fulfillment depend on the identification of higher-order concerns---  called “self-actualization” by Maslow and according to my own view clearly identified with meaning and happiness.

 

Albert Schweitzer observed, in a conveyance of wisdom to young people:  “I know not what your future will be, but one thing I know:  The only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought, and found, how to serve.”

 

The meaning of life is the rendering of loving service to others.

 

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Happiness is living in accordance with the meaning of life.

 

To move to the highest realms where happiness is possible, once must first fulfill fundamental biological needs and feel safe in the world, according to the Maslow formulation, following also the Freudian concept of id and the (B.F.) Skinnerian construct of primary reinforcers.

 

Through my filter, this means the following:

 

To attain happiness, one must first live healthily, with a respect for one’s body:

 

This means eating a diet dominated by fresh fruits, vegetables, fiber-rich foods, and sufficient protein; exercising vigorously enough to build a strong cardiovascular system;  and getting adequate sleep.

 

One must then dedicate one’s life to the service of others from a spiritual center that values meaning over triviality.  This may be done in fulfillment of the beneficent principles of any major faith or belief system, in the context of any honorable profession, upon the assumption of material sufficiency.  Material sufficiency may include the sort of abundance that comes with extraordinary material success.  But happiness resides in the service to others.

 

When one is dedicated to the service of others at the core of one’s spiritual center, then empathic and altruistic values abound.

 

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Understand, then, that adults must first gain an understanding of life’s meaning, the practical preparatory elements for happiness, and the happiness that flows from meaning upon those preconditions.

 

Adults must then live their lives in accordance with meaning and the principles of happiness.   

 

They must then be adults in the proper sense and instruct young people according to their wisdom.

 

Young people expect to receive knowledge and ethics from adults.

 

Excellent education and an ethically thriving society depend upon providing knowledge and ethics to all of our precious children, of all demographic descriptors.