Happyness as an Equation?

Last night we did simple math. We looked at a self-styled formula on life and assigned values to the symbols. This formula aims to metaphorically measure our current happiness status – a rather ambitious formula to start with. Here is the formula for your recap:-

H = B (Enjoy what you already have + Achieve your goals) x P
C

Here’s what the symbols stand for: H = Happiness; B = Balance; C = Contentment; P = Purpose. If you wish to assign numbers to these symbols, I would recommend a scale of 1 to 7 for B and P. With 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest on the score board. For example, if you feel really right with God and are wholly aligned with His spiritual principles, then you should score a perfect 7 on P. As for C, since it is the denominator, it works just the reverse, that is, 1 being the most contented and 7 being the least.

Of course, this formula is merely an allegorical representation of a principle on how to attain true and enduring happiness in your life. What I’m saying is that it works much better if we restrict ourselves to just understanding the principle this formula is trying to impart rather than doing the actual math.

Let’s start with the numerator. Last night, we discussed in some depth the importance of balancing the scales of “enjoying what you already have” and “achieving your goals”. This is the 1st bedrock principle of happiness. I believe that you cannot be truly happy if you are out of balance on this. My clients learnt this the hard way. Most of them seldom struck the right balance between just enjoying their current status and striving blindly for that elusive social and economic trophy called “success”. For those who enjoy their current status, that is, their house, their family and their work, this trait is admirable. Very little people I know could truly and with a straight face tell me that they are really happy with what they have. But to stop short at that would be to shortchange God-given ability and plans for our life.

I strongly advocate investing your potentials. I am all for giving that extra planned effort to achieve those goals you have set in your life – whether in your career, in your married life or your children’s welfare. So, it is almost as equally important to achieve those realistic goals as it is to enjoy what you currently have or possessed. The master key here is balance. The logic is simple. You can go out of your way to achieve the best grade, the best job, the fattest paycheck, the biggest house, the top of the line car or cars, and the respect (or envy) of your peers, but you will not be any happier if by achieving all that you leave a trail of disasters behind like a marriage on a verge of divorce, ill-disciplined and rebellious children, and animosity of your colleagues and friends for whom you have betrayed while climbing up the career ladder.

But you may ask, how do I strike the right balance? How do I know when enough is enough? Where do I draw or toe the line? Are there different balances at different stages of my life? The answer to the last question is yes. And the answers to the rest of the question is C and P. This is where Contentment and Purpose come into focus. This is the 2nd and final bedrock principle of happiness.

Contentment is the hardest concept to grasp but it is also the most important and most beneficial. To understand contentment fully in our spirit is like drinking a nice chilled glass of carbonated water after ten days of life-threatening thirst. The feeling is out of this world. And Proverbs 14:30 has this to add, “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bone.” However elusive the concept, contentment is simply having the consistent resolve to live life for a purpose on a daily basis and once your life is aligned with that purpose, nothing else really matters.

This is why a purpose-driven life is so crucial in completely quenching the seemingly endless carnal appetites we all have for the material things and worldly possessions of this world. Our thirsts for the symbols of wealth, reputation and social standing can only be controlled if we take stock every once in a while in life’s hurried fast-track. The only way I know to break the cycle of endless desires and wants is to start questioning the underlying purpose behind all that lust for power, cravings for material possession and thirst for revenge. Oops, I forget another carnal desire of the heart, that is, the irresistible need to compare and become envious of others when we come short in comparison. For example, ever wonder how easy it is for us to become jealous of our friends or neighbor when they had just bought a HD-ready 42-inch TV while ours is just a 34-inch flat screen? Or, doesn’t it just eat us up when our sister’s husband got that promotion and is now upgrading to a 4-room private condominium and ours is just a HDB 5-room mouse hole? There is a comics strip that shows an employee confronting his boss by demanding, “OK boss, if you can’t see your way to giving me a pay raise, how about giving John a pay cut?”

Sometimes, we have to grab the bull of carnal appetites and envy by the horns and wrestle it down. We have to interrogate them as if we are interrogating prisoners and suspects. We have to question their intent and purpose. Here are some self-reflecting questions for your pondering: What is driving you to succeed today? What principles are your guideposts? What are your daily choices, whether conscious or unconscious, based on? Is your moral compass pointing true north, most of the time or all of the time? Do you sense an inner, spiritual conflict between your principles and your action? Do you profess one thing and perform another? Are you wedged between doing what is right and what is popular?

Let me lay the gauntlet down. Your purpose in life will determine how contented you are with what you already have and what you plan to achieve. Purpose and contentment are the spices that add to your enjoyment of your current social and familial status. It is also the drive that inspires you to achieve your goals. At the same time, purpose and contentment are your guidepost that advises you when to stop craving and start relishing, when to take a breather, when to rest and smell the roses, and when to say enough is enough.

Up until now, you will note that I have yet to reveal the ultimate purpose of life. At first, I thought that it is really up to you, at your own pace and through your own resolve and conviction to come up with and commit to an all compassing, all unifying and all enduring purpose based of course on biblical principles. I do not wish to impose upon you the purposes I think is worth pursuing since it is far better for you to come up with your own and make it your own so that you will treat it seriously. But maybe at this point, and to end this short letter befittingly, I would like to suggest two principles that your self-formulated purpose should embrace: Love and Charity. I earnestly believe that all heroes of old and new, all self-denying luminaries of history and all great characters that are immortalized in books and fables based their beliefs, actions and words on love and charity.

Love in this case is the love for God and his creation. Charity is a natural outreach of love and it involves giving, devoting and sacrificing. There is so much to talk about when the subject of love and charity are involved. But suffice to say, as long as your purpose are aligned with them, you will find that life opens up many doors and opportunities for you and your life will never be deprived of hope, faith and assurance. Let me sum up with this powerful scripture from Ephesians 11:11, “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ…he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.”

Yours

Michael Han