James Castleton

The major dilemma in life arises when it is assumed that meaning is simply a greater degree of happiness, such that the more one indulges physiological needs, the more likely it is that life will be experienced as meaningful.

Thoroughly selfish individuals can be entirely happy. They will be unlikely to find life very meaningful. To such individuals, meaning often seems accidental, coincidental, or tangential _ The reason this is so is that selfish people will find life meaningful only when they are not themselves; when they forget their selfish desires and act in a manner more consistent with agape (selfless love). Meaning seems accidental, coincidental or tangential to their lives because, by and large, selflessness is accidental, coincidental and tangential to their lives. There is nothing unpredictable about meaning, only the presence of selflessness in the life of a selfish person.

Because I did not understand the difference between meaning and happiness, I did not appreciate that life could be meaningful without being happy. I didn__ understand that meaning and happiness are occasionally opposed, such that the self-sacrifice that yields meaning may come at the cost of the very things on which happiness most depends. I erroneously assumed that if I were unhappy then my life lacked significance.

Happiness is the sense that my life is good because my biological needs are being met. Meaning is the sense that my life is significant because it has met the needs of another. Happiness bestows the feeling that I am whole. Meaning bestows the feeling that I matter and am valued. Happiness is an event, and meaning is a state. Happiness is the means to an end; meaning is an end in itself. Happiness fades; meaning accumulates.

Happiness fades by design, precisely because it__ a means to an end, not an end in itself. We continually need to meet our psychological, emotional, and physical needs to remain healthy. If one meal were enough to provide lasting happiness, we would slowly starve to death afterward _ Consequently, there__ a limit to our happiness, which is defined by the amount required to satisfy a biological need. Exceed this amount, and the result isn__ more happiness but the discomfort and disease that follow from overindulgence. While some may be good, more isn__ necessarily better, and too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

The measure of a man__ character may be the manner in which he treats the one who can do him no good, but the measure of his heart is the manner in which he loves the one who has hurt him. He who is unloving in his pain was never really loving in his happiness.