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Jun 04, 2014 | The Rev. Bertie Pearson

Finding Happiness: Cristal, Maybachs, Diamonds on your Timepiece

(elbuen.org) The English word happiness comes from the Old English word hap, which meant stuff involving random chance. Like its Spanish equivalent, feliz, which comes from the Latin word for fertile, the idea is: if you’re lucky enough to have good crops or a baller job, you’re happy. Period. To a medieval person, the idea that someone had her own apartment, a fridge full of Lone Star and burgers for dinner every night, but wasn’t happy, would be incomprehensible; for them, happiness WAS material wealth.

 

Now, we mean something a little different: we’ve tacked on another concept, which earlier peoples wouldn’t have dreamed of associating with dumb luck. It’s an idea they might have called joy or delight, or, to get even more specific (by which I mean get even more nerdy on you), Eudaimonia. This is a Greek word which thinkers like Plato and Aristotle used for a joyous life—a life filled with meaning.

 

Eudaimonia, was the opposite of luck; it was a state that came from within, and it meant following the Good over all else. For them, Good was almost like... Continue reading here.