The 'pursuit of happiness' may just lead in circles

The of happiness appears to be relentless here, but happiness itself appears to be elusive. In fact, America today is plagued by a crisis of happiness.

According to the US Surgeon General , the problem of loneliness — an acute form of unhappiness — has reached "epidemic" levels. Millennials and Gen Z have been hit especially hard, and depression and anxiety are at dangerous levels for teenagers. The crisis of unhappiness — of psychic pain — is also evidenced all over the country where the effects of drug addiction and isolation are plain to see.

In my own case, as an immigrant from Canada and the son of immigrants from Pakistan, I've never really been sure what happiness is. It was practically a foreign word in my childhood home, as in many immigrant homes. Other words were more prevalent in our vocabulary: duty, work, sacrifice, faith. There was laughter and there was stress. But personal happiness? We never had enough time (or quiet days) to ponder that.

Over the last decade, I worked hard, ran the meritocratic rat race of Yale and Harvard, had serious downs and soaring ups, published my first book, did the things I had always wanted to do. I put enormous energy into this upward climb to build intergenerational social capital — but also went through periodic bouts of depression.

I've been wondering what we miss when we are caught up in the chase. The perpetual pursuit of excellence exerts a toll on the mind and body. It can take away from precious moments with family or times of rest. There is a cost exacted from the pursuit itself. And it can leave one feeling unfulfilled.

So now in my 30s, I'm pausing to ask what happiness really means to me.

To figure out happiness, I went looking through history and other cultures. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "happiness" first appears in English around 1473, and its first meaning was "good fortune or good luck in life generally or in a particular affair, success, prosperity." But three centuries earlier, the Sufi Muslim polymath al-Ghazali wrote a book called "The Alchemy of Happiness," in which he argued that ultimate happiness was achieved only in communion with the Divine. For millennia, happiness and God, or worship, were synonymous to some degree.

Modern social science has demonstrated that today, happiness has some connection with material well-being. Studies show that happiness is correlated with income, but scholars disagree on the dollar amount that satisfies most people. In other words, money can buy happiness — but only up to a point. For the least happy group of people, happiness will grow until their income reaches $100,000 a year, though a more recent study puts the number closer to $500,000. Where there is consensus is that after some six-figure milestone there is no additional increase to happiness per dollar earned. This would explain why there are plenty of rich people who are deeply unhappy.

What I have found is that true happiness is connected to some meaning or purpose beyond personal ambition. I've known too many unhappy successful people to doubt this, and I find the greatest personal happiness when I'm doing the things I love.

Maybe the English word "happiness" is itself constricting. The Japanese have their own word for the life well lived, which is more holistic: "ikigai." This word literally means "reason for being," and unlike Western notions of happiness, it is not "pursued" but, rather, internally nurtured. Everyone's ikigai is unique. Tending to the garden can be one's ikigai; being a good parent can be someone else's; climbing mountains can be another — or it could include all three. One's ikigai can evolve with the seasons of life but is always there — the deeper, soulful meaning that we create in harmony with the world around us.

Some of this feels as if it is known but not practiced, and I think that's another thing I'm learning — to fill in the gap between knowing and doing, to treat life like an art form, and to practice it well, daily, consciously allowing meaning and joy to blossom. Which is to say, to become more about the things I do.

I believe there is a hierarchy of happiness. The lowest level is reached when our material and physical needs are met, while the highest level, transcendental happiness, is connected to having a spiritual life anchored in community. It is something closer to purposeful joy, to the ancient Greek concept of "eudaimonia"or using one's potential to the full extent and aligned with the highest values. Indeed, without getting religious, I think the greatest form of happiness may be called love — for ourselves, for nature, for God and our fellow beings.

Still, this leaves open the personal question: What does happiness mean to me at this point in my life? After meditating on it, I feel confident enough to say what happiness is to me right now:

A morning cup of tea and a freewheeling journal session.

Appreciating beautiful writing and working with language myself, carpenter-style, to bend sentences to my imagination and purpose.

Laughter in the face of serious things, and at other times taking humorous matters with the utmost seriousness.

Conversations that are so refreshing it would be foolish to end them early.

My family, pets, and friends, and being there for my people.

Walking through the park in the midafternoon with Kendrick Lamar or Dmitri Shostakovich playing in my headphones.

Letting go.

Learning something new every day.

Summertime in New England, watching picturesque sunsets in silence from Boston to Bar Harbor.

Using my talents to make a small difference in the world.

Love, being loved, and actively

In the end, I have learned that happiness is not pursued as much as cultivated — right here, in this moment, in this one life we get to shape. Where we can form bonds that show us the depths of existence. Where we can heal from the past and create something new. Happiness cannot be chased, but every day, it can still be found.