Alas, the secret to happiness is low expectations. My 97 year old grandfather said that he was happy based on his good health, food in his belly, a shirt on his back, a roof over is head, and all of his children still being alive with none of them having been in jail. Of course, he lived through the Great Depression. As simple as that is, it has brought me great comfort and so I can say too that i am grateful and happy, but must remind myself to remain vigilant against the tyranny of raised expectations.
A word that follows "life" and "liberty" in the opening section of the Declaration of Independence. It can be hard to hang on to, even if one manages to achieve it.
The Marquis de Chastellux in his Essay on Public Happiness:
"Second, how many days must a man work in the year, or, how many hours must he work in the day, to procure for himself that which is necessary to his preservation, and his ease? Having resolved these questions, it will be no difficult matter to determine how many days in the year, or how many hours in the day, may remain for this man to dispose of: that is to say, how many may be demanded of him, without robbing him either of the means of subsistence, or of welfare; so that now, the whole matter rests upon an examination, whether the performance of that duty, which the sovereign exacts from him, be within, or beyond the time, which each man can spare from his absolutely necessary avocations."
Chastellux’s calculation has broader implications, as Garry Wills has shown in Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. In chapter 10, Wills outlined how Chastellux’s definition of public happiness informed Jefferson’s meaning in the famous phrase about the “pursuit of happiness.” In a 1952 speech he never gave, Dwight Eisenhower cited Jefferson in what is almost an abbreviated paraphrase of Chastellux’s calculation: “If we can but prevent government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.”
Alas, the secret to happiness is low expectations. My 97 year old grandfather said that he was happy based on his good health, food in his belly, a shirt on his back, a roof over is head, and all of his children still being alive with none of them having been in jail. Of course, he lived through the Great Depression. As simple as that is, it has brought me great comfort and so I can say too that i am grateful and happy, but must remind myself to remain vigilant against the tyranny of raised expectations.
ReplyDeleteBeing proud of the choices you've made.
ReplyDeleteA word that follows "life" and "liberty" in the opening section of the Declaration of Independence. It can be hard to hang on to, even if one manages to achieve it.
ReplyDeleteThe Marquis de Chastellux in his Essay on Public Happiness:
ReplyDelete"Second, how many days must a man work in the year, or, how many hours must he work in the day, to procure for himself that which is necessary to his preservation, and his ease? Having resolved these questions, it will be no difficult matter to determine how many days in the year, or how many hours in the day, may remain for this man to dispose of: that is to say, how many may be demanded of him, without robbing him either of the means of subsistence, or of welfare; so that now, the whole matter rests upon an examination, whether the performance of that duty, which the sovereign exacts from him, be within, or beyond the time, which each man can spare from his absolutely necessary avocations."
Chastellux’s calculation has broader implications, as Garry Wills has shown in Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. In chapter 10, Wills outlined how Chastellux’s definition of public happiness informed Jefferson’s meaning in the famous phrase about the “pursuit of happiness.” In a 1952 speech he never gave, Dwight Eisenhower cited Jefferson in what is almost an abbreviated paraphrase of Chastellux’s calculation: “If we can but prevent government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.”
I think happiness is when we feel comfortable on doing something
ReplyDeleteReminds me of what Mme De Gaulle shocked dinner party guests by saying (in English). If you know the story. . .
ReplyDeleteCalgacus, I had to look it up.
ReplyDelete