Happiness Is a Moral Obligation

One of the people that I admire, in regards to his clarity and stance on happiness, is Dennis Prager. He is a conservative talk show host. I do not agree with much of his political or social ideology, but my site is not for either political or social debate. There are many sites that take care of that very well. My site is dedicated to the pursuit, capture, care and feeding of a positive mental attitude. Happiness fits dead center!

This particular essay was written on Townhall.com. As both a writer and an aggregater of essays on Attitude, this one is a natural to reprint.

Happiness Is a Moral Obligation
By Dennis Prager

For much of my life, I, like most people, regarded the pursuit of happiness as largely a selfish pursuit. One of the great revelations of middle age has been that happiness, far from being only a selfish pursuit, is a moral demand.

When we think of character traits we rightly think of honesty, integrity, moral courage, and acts of altruism. Few people include happiness in any list of character traits or moral achievements. But happiness is both.

Happiness -- or at least acting happy, or at the very least not inflicting one's unhappiness on others -- is no less important in making the world better than any other human trait.

With some exceptions, happy people make the world better and unhappy people make it worse. This is true on the personal (micro) and global (macro) planes.

On the micro plane:

Consider the effects of an unhappy parent on a child. Ask people raised by an unhappy parent if that unhappiness hurt them.

Consider the effects of an unhappy spouse on a marriage.

Consider the effects of unhappy children on their parents. I know a couple that has four middle-aged children of whom three are truly extraordinary people, inordinately well adjusted and decent. The fourth child has been unhappy most of his life and has been a never-ending source of pain to the parents. That one child's unhappiness has always overshadowed the joy that the parents experience from the other three children. Hence the saying that one is no happier than one's least happy child.

Consider the effects of a brooding co-worker on your and your fellow workers' morale -- not to mention the huge difference between working for a happy or a moody employer.

We should regard bad moods as we do offensive body odor. Just as we shower each day so as not to inflict our body odors on others, so we should monitor our bad moods so as not to inflict them on others. We shower partly for ourselves and partly out of obligation to others. The same should hold true vis a vis moods; and just as we avoid those who do not do something about their body odor we should avoid whenever possible those who do nothing about their bad moods.

The flip side of the damage unhappy people do when they subject others to their unhappiness is the good that people do when they are, or at least act, happy. Just think of how much more you want to help people when you are in particularly happy mood and you realize how much more good the happy are likely to do.

On the macro plane, the case for the relationship between happiness and goodness is as apparent.

It is safe to say that the happiest Germans were not those who joined the Nazi Party. Nor did the happiest Europeans become Communists. And happy Muslims are not generally among those who extol death. The motto of Hamas and other Islamic groups engaged in terror, "We love death as much as [Americans, Jews] love life," does not appeal to happy Muslims.

Cults, hysteria and mass movements all appeal to the unhappy far more than to the happy. It is one more example of the genius of America's Founders to include "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the Declaration of Independence. No other major civilization so enshrined happiness as a core value. This American belief in the moral and societal merit in pursuing happiness is a major reason America has developed differently than Europe. The American emphasis on happiness is one reason no fanatical political or religious movement, Left or Right, has been able to succeed in America as such movements have repeatedly succeeded in Europe.

The pursuit of happiness is not the pursuit of pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure is hedonism, and hedonists are not happy because the intensity and amount of pleasure must constantly be increased in order for hedonism to work. Pleasure for the hedonist is a drug.

But the pursuit of happiness is noble. It benefits everyone around the individual pursuing it, and it benefits humanity. And that is why happiness is a moral obligation.

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Don't Mess With Kids

A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.  

The teacher said it was physically impossible for a
whale to swallow a human because even though it
was a very large mammal its throat was very small.

The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a
whale. 

Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could
not swallow a human; it was physically impossible.

The little girl said, "When I get to heaven I will ask
Jonah".

The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?"

The little girl replied, "Then you ask him ".

***********************************************************

A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom
of children while they were drawing.  She would
occasionally walk around to see each child's work.  
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently,
she asked what the drawing was.

The girl replied, "I'm drawing God."

The teacher paused and said, "But no one knows
what God looks like."

Without missing a beat, or looking up from her
drawing, the girl replied, "They will in a minute."

*****************************************************

A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten
Commandments with her five and six year olds.
After explaining the commandment to "honor" thy
Father and thy Mother, she asked, "Is there a
commandment that teaches us how to treat our
brothers and sisters?"

Without missing a beat one little boy (the oldest
of a family) answered, "Thou shall not kill."

*****************************************************

One day a little girl was sitting and watching her
mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She
suddenly noticed that her mother had several
strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her
brunette head.

She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked,
"Why are some of your hairs white, Mom?"

Her mother replied, "Well, every time that you do
something wrong and make me cry or unhappy,
one of my hairs turns white."

The little girl thought about this revelation for a while
and then said, "Momma, how come ALL of
grandma's hairs are white?"

********************************************************

The children had all been photographed, and
the teacher was trying to persuade them each to
buy a copy of the group picture.

"Just think how nice it will be to look at it when
you are all grown up and say, 'There's Jennifer,
she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Michael, He's a doctor.'

A small voice at the back of the room rang out,
"And there's the teacher, she's dead."

***************************************************

A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation
of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer,
she said, "Now, class, if I stood on my head, the
blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would
turn red in the face."

"Yes," the class said.

"Then why is it that while I am standing up right in
the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into
my feet?"

A little fellow shouted, "Cause your feet ain't empty."

********************************************************

The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a
Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head
of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun
made a note, and posted on the apple tray:
"Take only ONE. God is watching."

Moving further along the lunch line, at the other
end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip
cookies.

A child had written a note, "Take all you want. God
is busy watching the apples”.

classroom kids teacher whale Jonah hell God jokes cry unhappy hair white