The Happiness Industry - The Hoax?

The Happiness Industry - The Hoax?

Etymologically happiness is by chance - happenstance - outside in.  In Judaism - it is a stretch to say there is even a word for happiness. The word - simcha - means - joy - INside out. And attempts to re-translate the hebrew meaning glad and rejoice into a word for happiness is really revisionism.

The point - trying to nail down the happiness industry - starts with a definition - that one can infer - or see, feel, touch or smell - and they avoid it....

When 'happiness is outside in' - it is usually a sensation - that typically requires higher and higher dosages to palliate for 'an altered' state - rather than an 'altared' state.

The closest is 'flow' which is confused with happiness. Flow per Csikszentmihalyl by example is where stimulation meets skill and one looks up and it is 3 hours later and where did the time go

Thus, simcha - and while I have great respect for the works of Dennis Prager - is not happiness nor is the Hebrew word for glad and rejoice meant to mean happiness-and neither is Simcha meant to mean happiness. The Hebrew for glad and or rejoice are  INside out states not a function of outside in

In ENOUGH Jewish Personal Financial Planning which I did from 1977 for 20 years as a fee only planner and now as an author (over 40 years) --- is "healing personal financial anxiety, puttin' money in its place, to transcend- elevate to one's assignment - significance - what one is meant to do - meant to be --- "aligning means with meaning"" And that's an INside out job - that may - I say may - create a state of simcha that's less prone to the slings and arrows of life outside in.

Note most of the happiness industry is just a repackaging of the self esteem business (again having lost steam and probably they stocked out of participation trophies)

Assumptions make an ass out of you and me - as the saying goes. Nail down the definition of happiness - and typically one gets the academic or sage on the stage (but not guide by the side) two step.

Finally per Mussar teaching in Judaism for example - there is the concept of equanimity - meaning 'rising above the good and the bad' - rather than happiness as an ideal trait.

All the aforementioned said and sans The Disney Sisyphusian 'happily ever after' - comes from one who only plays a rabbi on tv (I couldn't get the Cigna gig).

PS I named one of my K9 Chavers (friends) of the Soul - Simcha - for 19th century Rabbi Simcha Bunim who said that 'you are a speck of dust, and yet the world was created for you.' And this Simcha, a black male standard poodle, had 29 gran mal seizures in 13 months - 4 on Rosh Hashanah in 45 minutes when I let him proceed to Olam Haba - taught me 'when you must, you can; when you can you must.'

To which--- It is said that a man complained to a Rabbi about how harsh difficult terrible this world is. The Rabbi said, yes, but there will plenty of tranquility in the world to come (olam haba). Not satisfied, the man called on Hashem (God) with the same complaint - how terrible, tough, challenging etc this world was asking God -- can't you send someone to fix this world?

To which Hashem responded, 'I did. I sent you.'

When you must you can - when you can you must - ..... align means with meaning - INside out – and therein is a modicum of simcha.