Something

A modern psychiatrist has written a “self-help” book1 in which people from all walks of life were asked the question: What is happiness? A young musician, married, with one child and one on the way, answered, “Happiness is a feeling of self-satisfaction and equilibrium.” A thirty-eight-year-old woman with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, married with two children, said: “Happiness is being satisfied.” A young, unmarried restaurant manager replied: “Happiness is peace of mind.” A Long Island housewife wrote that she derived happiness from “feeling content with myself.” A middle-aged Vermont man said his happiness came from “being secure in my feelings about myself.” A woman in her eighties said that the “ability to cope” was the reason for her happiness. “It gives me a fulfilled feeling,” she said. Other definitions included: “Happiness is not being unhappy,” and “Happiness is being free of worries about things I can’t control.”

Let’s acknowledge that some of those answers contain more than a grain of truth. Certainly “peace of mind”…