The purpose of life is to be happy

‛The purpose of life is to be happy’

‛The purpose of life is to be happy’ is a motto that many people need to tell themselves in order to have a goal in life. It’s a device that is put into our minds since we’re little. You can see this for example in Disney movies or fairytales, in which the purpose of the story is a happy end.

So we grow up by believing that we’ll end up happy too, if we pursue this idea. But what exactly is happiness? Some of us think of it as material fulfilment or professional success and others as the achievement to start a family or making other people happy. But is happiness really possible or is it just an illusion?

First of all many people don’t manage to be satisfied in the present, because they distract themselves by thinking of the past, which makes them nostalgic. They believe that back then everything was better and that they had less problems. These people often also think of the future and hope that everything will be better then.

So this can be an obstacle for them to focus on the present and to perceive the good and positive things that happen now, which leads to them not being happy. The goal of being happy is so inaccessible for them and they just make themselves crazy, so it really shouldn’t be the device for their existence.

Furthermore it’s a subjective view of life, especially in our western culture. Other philosophies, other countries or cultures have a completely different view of the sense of life. They’re purpose isn’t to be happy, but for example to serve god or creating harmony between all elements of society or to just get through this life in order to enter the final life.

Despite of everything we need a sense to live and happiness is the best one. If we wouldn’t take happiness as our sense of life, we couldn’t find another one that motivates us this much to live on. We need a reason why we go to school, why we have a job and why we want to start a family.

The reason is that we hope that by doing all those things we are finally going to achieve this goal!

Even if constant happiness may be an illusion, the pursuit of happiness already makes us happy , because it gives us hope. By pursuing this device with ambition we are getting closer to our happy end. The excitement of thinking that we’re finally getting what we want, makes us believe that we live for a reason and that our achievements aren’t meaningless.

To conclude I believe that happiness really is the purpose of life! Even if for many other people it isn’t like that, because they’re not capable of seizing their chance or because they have other believes. I believe that the possibility that there is happiness, already makes us happy, because it means that there is hope that our life isn’t futile.