You seem to be positing that leading a meaningful life will itself lead you to happiness, and therefore I think that when you ask what happiness means to everyone else, you’re also asking what everyone thinks is meaningful. Personally, I find it difficult to answer both of those questions.

In my mind, it boils down to short-term and long-term tradeoffs for happiness and meaningful experiences. I think in the long-term, having meaning in my life will give me great satisfaction and make me happy. Short-term, however, I don’t think that the two will be as closely linked. For example, this summer I am very much looking forward to working on domestic violence litigation. I expect that when I reflect upon it at the end of the summer, it will have been a deeply meaningful experience which will affect the way I see the world. However, I think there’s a good chance that my experiences on some days will be very depressing. While I won’t be happy those days, I think I will be happy to have had the experience at the end of the summer.

I recognize that I haven’t answered the questions of what happiness and meaning are to me, but I’m not sure that I have clear answers. I know things that I like and dislike, and could say that I’ll be happy when I’m maximizing the likes and minimizing the dislikes. But some balance of both is probably appropriate to enjoy life. Maybe that’s where meaning come in – happiness might be surrounding myself with the things I like, and doing the things I don’t like when they contribute to something I will appreciate at some future point.

-- CarolineElkin - 24 Feb 2009