(Today’s article comes from a slightly different kind of literature. My current grad school class is reading through St. Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. It is a brilliant philosophical work, full of wisdom on what it means to live a virtuous life. I hope you enjoy this little window into my more philosophical reads. If you would like to see more articles like this, please let me know in the comments!)
“Happiness Is a Choice.”
Ah, the favored maxim of the self-care era. If true, this might be the greatest life hack of the century. What if happiness was not an emotion we had to chase down, or a result of our circumstances, but rather a mindset, something we could simply choose to possess at any given moment? This whole time you thought that you were struggling with forces outside of your control, when in fact you have been in charge of your destiny all along! Are you sad? Depressed? Don’t worry. You can simply choose to be happy. How did we not figure this out earlier?
All jokes aside, I do think this is an interesting theory. And since it has become the battle cry of many modern-day life coaches and social media influencers (many of whom are Christian), I think it is well worth discussing. As a philosophy student, I find myself asking, “What are the philosophical underpinnings of this theory? If it’s true that we can simply ‘choose happiness,’ what does this say about our emotions and how we ought to handle them?”
Choosing Means, Not Ends
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a lot about the emotions. He wrote a lot about them because he wrote a lot about virtue, and the emotions and virtue are closely linked. For Aquinas, moral virtue is a habit by which we train our emotions to naturally incline towards what they ought to incline towards.1
Does that mean we can choose to be happy? The answer is not quite so simple. In fact, the answer to this question is best revealed when we take a moment to fully understand the nature of choice. What does it mean to “choose” something, and what sorts of things are we able to choose? Choice has to be limited in some respects. It cannot be concerned with everything, for there are certain things that we definitely cannot choose (for example, the ability to move household objects with the force, although I did try as a kid).
In his Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Aquinas argues that choice is concerned with means and not ends.2 He explains that our wills are already inclined by their very nature towards “the good” as the ultimate end of all our actions. Everything we do, we do either because we think the action itself is good, or because we think that by doing the action, we will bring about some good.
The end of our actions is not something we can choose. It is no more within our power to act for something other than the good than it is within the power of the acorn to grow into something other than a tree. It is ingrained in us by nature to desire and act for the good.
So, if choice is not concerned with ends, what is it concerned with? Aquinas says that choice is concerned with the means by which we attain the end. We do not deliberate about whether or not we should act for the sake of the good. We deliberate about and choose the means by which we think we will best attain the good. In other words, choice is always about particular actions, not overall goals.
In light of Aquinas’ comments, it becomes clear that we cannot choose happiness, for happiness is an end of action. It is the thing we act for, not the action itself. Happiness does not get us to the end; it is the end for which we act. Actions may bring about happiness, but they are not synonymous with it.
With this in mind, we can now assess the theory that says “happiness is a choice.” Happiness is not a choice in the sense that we can simply choose it, and in choosing it possess it immediately. We can’t choose happiness like we can choose to go for a walk, or sit in a chair. Happiness is rather a result of our actions. The danger of saying happiness is a choice is that it makes it sound as if we could simply white-knuckle our way out of sorrow, worry, or pain. Anyone who has experienced these things will know how impossible that is in practice. Most of the time, our sufferings are so painful precisely because we are not able to simply get rid of our pain as we wish to. If happiness were a choice, it seems that everyone would already be happy. For who would choose sadness over happiness?
Choosing to Become Happy vs. Choosing Happiness
On the other hand, I do not think that this idea of “choosing happiness” is entirely worthless. I believe Aquinas would say there is something valuable here that can be salvaged. It just needs some further clarification.
While Aquinas admits that we are not praised or blamed for the immediate rise of certain emotions, he does say that we are praised or blamed for what we do with them. Aquinas was a firm believer that the emotions should be taught to obey reason. After all, the entire point of virtue is to train our emotions through right action. Aquinas would readily admit that while we cannot choose happiness itself, we can choose certain actions or mindsets that will be more likely to bring about happiness.
When people say that happiness is a choice, I think this is what they are really getting at. It seems they are really trying to say that they have discovered it is within their power to choose certain habits of thinking or certain actions that put them in a place to better experience joy. It can be very hard to do this when we are currently experiencing sorrow; but it is also a very courageous thing to do.
We will never be able to fully banish sorrow from our lives, nor should we try. The idea that we can simply choose happiness in the way that we choose which shirt to wear in the morning is simply inaccurate. However, it is possible to actively alleviate our sorrow by choosing to do actions which bring about delight and rest. And it is possible to start doing these actions before we begin to feel happy.
To end this brief reflection, St. Thomas Aquinas gives five concrete actions we can do in order to mitigate sorrow and increase happiness in times of trouble.3 In my experience, putting even one or two of these into practice works much better than simply trying to “will” myself into being happy. So, next time you are feeling down, it might be worth giving one (or all) of these a try. Because happiness is not a choice, but through our choices it is possible to become happier.
St. Thomas Aquinas’ Five Remedies for Sorrow4
Enjoy appropriate pleasures. Pleasure is a sort of delight that comes about when we rest in a good that is appropriate to our nature. If you delight in something enjoyable that is good for you, you will naturally be happier.
Have a good cry. It feels good to do what is fitting and proper to the present circumstances. When you are sad, it is fitting to cry. So if you cry when you are sad, you will ironically feel better!
Talk with friends. When a man is comforted by his friends, he sees that he is loved. It is a good thing to be loved. Knowing you are loved brings pleasure, which alleviates sorrows.
Do some metaphysics. The greatest of all pleasures is found in the contemplation of truth. This one is harder to explain in a short paragraph, but it is essentially because the contemplation of truth is the goal of the highest part of our nature. Whenever we do anything suited to our nature, we have pleasure. Since contemplating truth is suitable to the highest part of our nature, it will bring us the greatest pleasure. So, in the midst of sorrows, Aquinas says we should “rejoice in contemplation of divine things and of future happiness.”5
Naps and Baths. Yep, the Angelic Doctor recommends sleep and bathing as a cure for sorrow and a way to increase happiness. Why? Aquinas says that sorrow works against the natural state of our bodies. Therefore, whatever restores our bodies to their regular state will bring peace and pleasure, which help banish sorrow.
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, II, 1, n. 247, at Aquinas Institute, www.aquinasinstitute.org.
Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, III, 5, n. 446-447, at Aquinas Institute, www.aquinasinstitute.org.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, Q. 38, a. 4, at Isidore, www.isidore.co.
Keep in mind that it is possible to go to excess in any one of these things. Virtue consists in doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, and to the right extent.
Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I-II, Q. 38, a. 4, at Isidore, www.isidore.co.
The new Evangelization begins, it begins with a proper notion of choice found in St. Thomas. Thanks for sharing your note which may be applied to many other aspects of life. How do you mend a broken heart is with in the reach of many.