To Be Happy, Make Others Happy‎

It's been argued that the best way to find happiness is to make ‎others happy. Although this dictum may ‎sound paradoxical, it reveals a key truth about human nature: When we get ‎away from our parochial minds and ‎invest in the lives of others, we ‎experience ‎satisfaction in our own lives. ‎

Many of the world's most admired people—leaders, artists, and others—devote their lives ‎to the service of humanity. They mark ‎their legacies by championing a ‎mission to reduce suffering and ‎improve human flourishing.

Helping others requires courage. It also requires effort and time; if you are overwhelmed trying to figure out ‎your own life, then you'll likely be less able to offer help to others. But once you meet your ‎goals and reach a level of self-actualization, you can devote your time, ‎energy, and efforts to help others find their ‎path in life. ‎

This dictum of “to be happy, make others ‎happy” has been articulated by wise ‎people throughout the ages. “If you want ‎happiness for a lifetime, help someone ‎else,” said Confucius, a Chinese ‎philosopher. “Give what you want to ‎receive,” wrote the American author ‎Russell Simmons. “If you want happiness, ‎make others happy.”‎

Eastern tradition, ‎especially in Arabic and Islamic ‎cultures, is unequivocal about the ‎importance of helping others. It is in the ‎Quran, the holy book of Muslims, and in Arabic folklore. The Prophet of Islam dedicated his life to “perfect ethics for humanity” and to reduce ‎human suffering and increase human ‎flourishing. ‎

Happiness, it has been said many times, is ‎elusive: if you are trying to ‎become happy for its own sake, then happiness will escape you. Even so, helping others may sound like a ‎cliché. I argue, therefore, ‎that you should articulate ‎a visionary mission that will guide the ‎trajectory of your life. If you find your niche in somehow improving the living ‎conditions of others, then that is a near-guaranteed way to find happiness in your own ‎life. ‎

Especially in the modern world, however, the ideas of "happiness" and "‎success" are often seen as interconnected. But in reality, the connection between ‎happiness and success is neither linear nor ‎casual. You can be wildly ‎successful yet extremely unhappy. ‎It is true, however, that a modicum of success in all major ‎domains of life—social, intellectual, and ‎personal, to name a few—is often a precondition to ‎happiness. This is because health and ‎well-being are inherently holistic. ‎

“Success is getting what you want,” wrote ‎the self-help guru Dale Carnegie. ‎‎“Happiness is wanting what you get.” So if ‎you set a mission to help others, and find ‎success in doing so, then happiness and ‎success will very likely accompany you “for a lifetime.”

But you may say, “What about anxiety, ‎depression, and other emotional predicaments?” ‎While some aspects of our mental health are unfortunately out of our control, our mental well-being ‎depends in large part on the thoughts we believe and ‎the behaviors we embody. The sum total of our ‎beliefs and actions can have a profound effect on our ‎emotional experience. Changing how you think and projecting the change you want to see in the world is often one of the first ‎steps toward recovery.

Pain is an essential part of life. In The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living, Russ Harris wrote, “The more we try to avoid the basic reality that all human life involves pain, the more we are likely to struggle with that pain when it arises, thereby creating even more suffering.” But if we recognize that pain is an inevitable reality, then devoting our life to helping others is likely to reduce collective suffering and increase personal happiness.

Conclusion ‎

Although it may sound counterintuitive at ‎first, one of the best ways to find ‎happiness is to make it your ‎mission to reduce human suffering and ‎improve human flourishing. In particular, I argue, you will have to articulate a niche mission through which you will achieve that goal.

In other words, as ‎Walter McClure, an influential American strategist, ‎put it: “If you want to be happy, go and ‎make someone else happy.” ‎