“The meaning of life is to be happy.” You’ve probably heard that many times in your life, and it’s incorrect. A more accurate statement would be, “The meaning of life is to do things that make you happy.” It’s still possibly misleading, but at least it’s more accurate.
Happiness is a feedback mechanism, not a goal. You can always tell the difference with a quick analogy that is much more obvious:
Question: “What is the purpose of going to school?”
Answer: “To learn.”
Notice that no one says, “To get an A,” unless they are in school and justifying cheating or doing whatever it takes to do well on tests without actually understanding the material. The A is the feedback mechanism—it’s not the goal. The goal is to learn. In life, the goal is to grow, and happiness is the feedback mechanism telling you that whatever you are doing is working.
Similar to cheating on a test to get an A, however, you can always “hack” your emotional state to feel good without doing the growth-enabling activity. Gambling, drugs, alcohol, and other addictive behaviors and substances can get you pleasure without being good for you. Therefore, you can be happy without having completed the underlying meaningful activity.
Similarly, you can be living a very meaningful life that has its hardships. Examples include serving in the military, being a defense attorney for someone who you know is guilty and committed an atrocity, and someone who is starting a business and sleeping on the floor of the office of the first location that he can barely afford. In those situations, those people wouldn’t describe themselves as happy per se, but their lives are filled with purpose.
The most famous example of this is how scientific studies show seemingly conflicting data about having children. On one hand, childless couples often report the highest levels of happiness in surveys. However, parents will report high levels of meaning and purpose in their lives because of their children. So, while the evidence varies from study to study, it is generally accepted at this time that children offer a modest tradeoff of happiness for meaning. If the meaning of life were to be happy, then that would be an impossible tradeoff to make because they would be one and the same.
Instead, meaning is related to but not the same as happiness. Yes, if you are living your best life and thriving in the parts of life that matter to you, you will be happy and satisfied with your life. But you can be living an epicurean life and not feel fulfilled, and you can be living a life where you are in serious, dark places for much of your life but still feel a strong sense of meaning and purpose.
There are two things that you can do with this information:
If you think you are happy but feel empty inside when the lights go out at night, you might want to consider seeking new growth opportunities that will increase your sense of fulfillment in life. Whether that is new friends, a new hobby, volunteer work, children, a new job, or anything else is up to you. If you are unhappy but know that you are working toward a better future for yourself and others, then consider whether this is temporary and, if so, you can continue on your journey and just take moments for rest, relaxation, recreation, or other means of keeping your emotional state healthy while you get through it. In either case, it’ll teach you a lot about the difference between meaning and happiness and how they are both important. They are often—but not always—linked, so your goal is to keep your life going in the right direction while trying to enjoy as much of it as possible along the way (without inhibiting your progress).