Column: Happiness best in moderation

By Mary Novokhovsky

Published Sept. 3, 2010

Me, probably you, Will Smith and the American constitution all have at least one thing in common: our support for the pursuit of happiness (hit that hi-hat folks!).

Happiness propaganda is everywhere: bulletin boards littered with ads endorsing something "feel-good," soothing self-help audiotapes, infomercial remedies, internet pop-up solutions, homeopathic cures, symptomatic relief pills, anti-itch creams, vision correction, diet secrets, etc., etc. It's all going to make you happier, isn't it?

How do we condense this happy-making data overload into a simple happiness solution? Well, first you take your favorite commercial bombardments and stir them carefully with your hopes and dreams. Next, remove any unpleasantries and roadblocks floating around in the mind, and there you have it -- an equation to calculate what will give you ULTIMATE HAPPINESS.

Wait -- that isn't the answer at all. We want to be happy, we need to be happy, but we should first attempt to concretely define "happiness" before we begin looking for it. So here we go.

Social philosopher and English eccentric Jeremy Bentham said happiness could be defined as a surplus of pleasure over pain. He said because our greatest aim is to increase pleasure, we should do so without the constraints of moral authority. However, Bentham reiterated the importance of keeping consequence in mind.

Now, let's regroup. Because the quickest route to immediate happiness is amorally maximizing pleasure, we should all go ahead and get hammered, get high and get laid, right? Well, maybe so, as long as we understand the ultimate consequences of our actions and can handle them effectively.

I spent my freshman year living by the rules of pleasure maximization. There's no need to go into detail because my situation mimics that of all the other overzealous "I'm finally free" crazy college girls who came before me. If you haven't heard the tales of people partying hard or fallen prey to college hedonism yourself, Google it.

My point here is I did feel good, but the consequences of my actions were devastating to my grades and my psyche. Quite frankly, I could not handle such a pleasure overload. And even more so, I'm still dealing with the aftermath of too much damn fun.

The idea I'm trying to get across here is we live in a world that has the utilities to help us quickly achieve any temporary feelings we could possibly want -- we have drugs, pills, TV, food and instant-streaming online content. Yet, there comes a time when we have to look beyond the quick and powerful happiness solutions.

In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say you don't always need them, because you don't always have to be happy. You should occasionally be depressed. You should sometimes feel nothing. You really should just experience a full range of emotions. To be in a state of perpetual cheer is, in fact, awfully annoying.

Maybe it's best to prioritize feeling the same way you would anything else. There is a time for inebriation, there is a time for self-loathing, and there is a time for feeling happy.

I'm not saying you have to plan emotions out in advance, but I am saying you have to exhibit self-control. I'm a firm believer in living day-to-day, taking things as they come, going with the flow, man -- but that doesn't mean every single day has to be filled with intoxication and excitement. In fact, if you attempt to turn everything you do into an adventure or a super-awesome acid trip, you'll soon find that nothing in this life will ever be good enough for you.