The pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right of man. The way we perceive happiness depends very much on our individual frames of reference underpinned by the values we have come to hold. One man’s happiness may be another’s misery; what one individual sees as a source of fulfilment may be a weighty burden for another. What is evident in modernity is the constantly evolving and subjective concept of joy and pleasure in the context of social change; it is notoriously difficult to form a substantive definition of human happiness due to its inherently fluid and subjective nature as a state of being.
Frameworks and paradigms of joy and eudemonia are undoubtedly affected by sociocultural patterns and trends. The culture of celebrity appraisal and the need for social recognition, for example, have come to form salient features of our received ideas of human happiness in a modern age. Happiness may be deemed as the fulfilment of one’s purpose and potential as a human. Unfortunately, this is a rather vague circumscription of happiness; how do we proceed to find our purpose and potential in a society full of countless, myriad ways of defining oneself with regards to subjective criteria? There comes a significant amount of existential angst in the task of defining one’s role as an individual; indeed, many of us perceive ourselves as having multiple purposes and functions as social animals.
Finding happiness depends a great deal on how we define our own characters. Many of us wonder how we can fully pursue our passions and create fulfilment. Of course, love is a fundamentally important aspect in creating happiness for oneself. There are many intersectional points in the phenomenology of sociality where love and happiness intertwine. Love is arguably an essential factor in human happiness, but is it a sufficient one? We are constantly seeking circumstances and ways of existing that will bring fulfilment; this transcends many of our choices at the level of our lived experience. As we change and adapt to new structures in society, our expectations of finding joy inevitably evolve. We search for ways of integrating into the setting that is the external world, finding our place and sharing experiences so as not to be divorced from the physical world; the way we interact and cohabit with others has inevitably been subject to change thank to new possibilities in the realm of culture and society. Traditional expectations of joy and togetherness have been transcended by postmodern tendencies seeking to rise above conventional sociological scaffolding.
Happiness will inevitably remain subjective as a philosophical concept. As an entity, it is often hard to conceive of it as tangible or in actual existence, but rather as a contested ideal that changes with our perception of external data and position on the social stage. How we view happiness has evolved with how we become affected by structural changes. Everyone has the right to pursue joy; this is a given. However, it is the definitions of happiness, joy and the opportunities available to pursue them that are contentious. Existing in a world full of rapid change and unpredictability, it can be hard to stop and consider whether we are indeed happy; perhaps it is time we deliberated more over the ends we are seeking and the joy they serve to create.