Eudaimonia describes an underlying foundation of acceptance and contentment in yourself and your world. It’s a sense of flourishing with what you have and where you are. It’s about being largely satisfied that you are on your best path for a life well lived, even if your circumstances are not perfection.
Happily (!), it’s a state of being that is more realistic, attainable and long-term rewarding than the pursuit of happiness. That’s because pursuing ‘happy’ in my opinion, is more than a little fraught as a concept.
Eudaimonia isn’t as reactive to what’s happening around us as our rising and falling emotions like ‘happy’, ‘sad’, and all the rest. It describes a more stable, all pervasive state of being and feeling, a state that is closer to becoming a part of our character over time and development, than any passing emotion.
Happiness is an unrealistic goal when lousy things are besetting and distressing us. Life gives us a million reasons why aiming to feel happy all the time would be nothing less than a fool’s game, guaranteed to regularly miss the mark.
But eudaimonia as a goal stays relevant, possible and supportive, even in tough times, because it can hold fast while we’re struggling with obstacles, with difficult emotions, striving to do difficult things.
We can be growing and hurting and still be OK, eudaimonic at our foundation. We can experience an underlying knowing even in dark times, that we are on a path of our choosing, within our values. We can keep believing we are capable, resilient, and that we can trust ourselves even if we’re not happy with how things are - that’s eudaimonia.
There’s a goal worth having. A goal that affirms that a rich and meaningful life is not the emotion of happy, which is temporary.
To find your way to a state of eudaimonia, is to develop your emotional resilience and courage to feel all of your emotions, with confidence you’ll survive even the difficult ones.
Eudaimonia is a freer place to inhabit than the happiness trap – as teacher Russ Harris called it – the mindset that if you aren't happy all the time, something must be wrong with you. It’s not.
With eudaimonia as a goal, you're ‘allowed’ to feel down for a bit, or a lot, without deciding you’re failing at anything.
You can observe your ups and downs, accept you make mistakes, let yourself recover and even celebrate what the mistakes have taught you.
You can feel angry and dissatisfied, you can get impatient, or have a bad day, and still feel on track, love your broader life and the endeavours you're pursuing.
Recently, I was looking through a bookstore and I noticed several of the usual bestsellers about "How to be happy" alongside others that debunked the idea of happiness as a workable goal, because by its very nature, it’s just a temporary feeling.
It's amusing to see these contradictory philosophies sitting right beside one another on the shelves. I think some confusion around happiness as a goal stems from misinterpretations of the goals of emotional intelligence or living well. Living well or emotionally intelligently is not as unidimensional as chasing happy feelings.
I think it’s more about being available to the fullness of your experience of this life through engagement and awareness in your existence. It's about being able to observe your thoughts and feelings - reminding yourself that you are more than just the sum of them, when you need to.
Somewhere in the self-help world, the concept of eudaimonia, of basic peace, awareness and satisfaction, became confused with 'happiness', in the sense of fun or hedonism.
Alternatively, the image of a yogi type, sitting in lotus smiling angelically, became a sort of unrealistic aspiration of awareness and peace of mind. You don’t need me to tell you that is not how most people’s inner lives look, yoga or not.
The true work of living mindfully is to be with what is, in the present moment - the good, the bad and the ugly - which is not always fun at all. I for one, don’t tend to smile angelically in meditation. I’m too busy working with myself noticing my temporary thoughts and feelings rising and falling, without chasing everyone of them.
Becoming your kindest, most self-aware, mindful self means becoming more discerning in your self-talk. It means living more consciously and making better decisions, due to increasing your self-awareness.
You live more intentionally, rather than on autopilot much of the time, so you can manage stress and distress more effectively by seeing it coming and taking care.
Then perhaps you feel less pushed around, less at the mercy of your feelings and thoughts, and more able to work with what comes up for you, with less anxiety.
From this, comes more self-confidence and self-trust, and growing resilience.
These things that stem from living mindfully are likely to lead you to feel happy feelings more often, but the happiness is a by-product of self-compassion and greater self-awareness. It’s not so fleeting or easy to crush. It becomes an inner flourishing of your spirit, eudaimonia.
It’s OK, even wise, to release yourself from the perfectionistic myth that you should somehow feel mindlessly happy all the time.
Start with kindness to yourself in your voice in your own head (and to others). A deeper, more permanent flourishing can then start to unfurl.
This struck a chord. Thank you.