I just posted a definition of happiness on my blog (which aims to be a more “scientific” definition), please check it out at http://www.spreadinghappiness.org/2009/08/what-…

Comments are very much welcome!

That's like Sidney Carton in “A Tale of Two Cities.”

It is easy being happy in a lovely setting, floating beneath clear skies…but what about in the real workaday world?

Daniel Gilbert, in “Stumbling on Happiness” (Knopf 2007) has a fascinating take on this.

To illustrate the complexity of the topic, Gilbert contrasts the lives of the late 19th century U.S. labour organizer Adolph Fischer – who was unjustly tried, convicted, and executed for his efforts to advance the cause of workers in his era – and his contemporary George Eastman who developed the revolutionary Kodak camera, became incredibly rich and famous, developed a humanistic management style that gave unprecedented benefits and advantages to his workers, and ultimately distributed among them one-third of the stock in his company.

Fischer, moments before his unjust execution in 1887, surprised everyone by his last words: “This is the happiest moment of my life.” In contrast, the wealthy, respected humanitarian Eastman was so unhappy with his own life that he killed himself.

Gilbert asks: ” So why did a poor man who had accomplished so little stand happily at the threshold of his own lynching while a rich man who had accomplished so much felt driven to take his own life?”

I don't accept Gilbert's ultimate argument entirely — his approach is more cognitive psychology than philosophy — but his book illustrates how incredibly complex such a seemingly simple thing as happiness is. Neither the “pleasant life” (having material goods and leisure) nor the “good life” (using “signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification”) seems to be ultimately sufficient to ensure happiness.

As Kathy's post suggests, happiness remains elusive…