Different ways to define happiness 

We can express the same idea in different words. Therefore, it follows that we can define our highest good in different ways. It is like an army that can be widely dispersed at one time but is close together in a smaller space at another; curved towards the centre or standing in a straight line. No matter how it is ordered, its strength and loyalty don’t change. So also, in some cases we will define the highest good in broad terms; in other cases, in short and concise terms. So, these two things mean the same: 

• The highest good is a mind that despises the accidents of fortune and takes pleasure in virtue. 
• The undefeated strength of mind knows the world. When it contacts any one, it is gentle in its dealings, showing great courtesy and consideration to them. 

A portrait of a happy person 

Or we may say that happy people recognize good and bad only as it relates to minds. They worship honour and are satisfied with their own virtue. Good fortune does not puff them up and bad fortune does not hold them down, they know no other good than what they can give themselves, and they take real pleasure in looking down on pleasures. 

If you follow this detour further, you can express the same idea in many other ways, without damaging or diluting its meaning. What stops us from saying that a happy life is one in which a mind: 

• is free, upright, undisturbed, and firm; 
• is beyond influence of fear or desire; and 
• thinks that nothing is good except honour and nothing bad except blame; 

and regards everything else as a jumble of meaningless details which can neither add to nor take away from the happiness of life; they come and go without increasing or decreasing the highest good? 

A man who follows these principles, whether he wants to or not, is continually cheerful. It is high happiness because he is happy with what he has. He desires pleasure no greater than what his home can afford. Is he not right in allowing these things to weigh more than petty, ridiculous and short-lived pleasures of the body? 

On the day a person becomes proof against pleasure, he also becomes proof against pain. But the person who is dominated by pleasures and pains—the most untrustworthy of passions—is forced to into a form of slavery that is evil and guilt-ridden. 

Escaping into freedom 

We must, therefore, escape from them into freedom. Otherwise, we will be looked down upon with contempt by Fortune. But if we achieve this, then there will be priceless blessings: the stillness of mind resting in a safe haven with its noble thoughts, its great and steady delight at getting rid of our mistakes and learning the truth, its courtesy, and its cheerfulness. We shall take delight in all of this, not as good things, but as a result of what is our good. 

Think about this 

On the day a person becomes proof against pleasure, they also become proof against pain. But the person who is dominated by pleasure and pain – the most untrustworthy of passions – is forced to into a form of slavery that is evil and guilt-ridden 

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In the FOURTH chapter of his discourse ON THE HAPPY LIFE, Seneca tells us that a happy person is free, upright and unafraid. This chapter is an excerpt from Stoic Happiness, a plain English version of Seneca’s On the Happy Life, pub-lished by The Stoic Gym. https://amzn.to/2I0mbVW

 

 

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