On Pursuit of Happiness vs. Pursuit of Meaning

The distinction between happiness and meaningfulness has a long history back to thousands of years in philosophy and religions. In short, a pursuit of happiness is seeking to live by pleasures, in other words, by taking things from outside to satisfy one’s senses. A pursuit of meaning, on the other hand, is seeking to live for something bigger than the ‘self’ - which could be our family, our work, or any other divine thing or Nature. 

I do not know enough philosophical references on happiness vs. meaning so I would like to express it using my own personal experience. I grew up in Monywa, a city in the middle of Myanmar. It is a relatively big city but compared to Yangon, it could be considered quite rural. On a funny note, a friend of mine asked me recently if I went to "ILBC" in Monywa since I studied in the U.S. and now fluent in English. Back in those days, there was no such private school in Monywa. I did not have any exposure to speaking or learning English besides the public school textbooks. 

I did not enjoy school much even though I did quite well - I was on one of the top 3 most of my years in basic education. The teachers or my classmates did not like it when I asked questions. I tried to understand and to make sense of what I read in textbooks but it was nearly impossible. I was in high school in Monywa, when I first learned about the education in the U.S. from an information section by Sayar U Tin Maung Than, who recently came back after studying at Harvard Kennedy School.

After I finished 10th grade exams, after series of arguments with my father who was against my desire to study abroad because I was a young girl, I left Monywa for Yangon to prepare myself to study abroad. I completely dropped going to the medical school in Mandalay. Long story short, I got into one of the private liberal arts in the U.S with a full scholarship for 4 yrs. My family was in no position to fund for my education otherwise.

And my plan was supposed to come back home after four years and to contribute something good to the society back home with the education I would get from the U.S. At least, that was what my parents wanted. For me, I just wanted to be outside of home to be free and independent, both intellectually and personally. 

The year I graduated from Colorado College, thinking back now, was a turning point - or rather I was at an intersection between pursuing a life for myself or a life for others. To be honest, I was quite lost. I did not even know clearly what I was trying to choose or what I wanted to do. So when you don’t know what you want or don’t know who you are, you become less in control of your life. You mostly get into the “default” setting, meaning you just try to follow a life as it has been prescribed by the society you are in.

To make it long story short, that default setting went on for another six years in New York. But the narrative I said in my head goes like this “people should be taking care of themselves. If you are doing good for yourself, you are “automatically’’ contributing good to the society.” I was completely just living for myself and myself alone. Well, I was not a bad or mean person - I still cared a lot for my friends but in a larger part, I believed that I should just live a “happy” life. I worked at a small company - even though work did not mean anything to me but I still worked very hard - there was a small part of me hidden inside that wanted to learn, grow and also help others around.

But I felt like I was working so that I could enjoy life. New York has endless stimulations to keep you busy. During that time, I went back to a graduate school for Accounting. Because after liberal arts education, I felt I needed to pick up some very specific skills to make use of myself at a work place. That was pretty much all my 20s.

So my 20s were spent pursuing a happy life and living for myself. Then when I hit 30, it hit me quite badly - I felt so bad that I had not done much and felt that I wasted most of my 20s. I needed urgently to find myself again and to be back in control of my life. And in one of the business classes I took in my last semester at the grad school, one thing got stuck in my mind, “in order to change something, you need to get back to the core.” After series of questioning myself and talking with my brother, to whom I’m most grateful for helping me through that existential crisis, I decided to move back to my home country. In order to find myself, I needed to get back to the core, where I started, and to be closer to my family and in my home country.

Since I have decided to pursue a meaningful life - to live for more than just for myself, I have been through two major processes - learning and giving. Personally, I have been learning rigorously about myself, about others and about things that I was very curious about- through asking questions to myself, reading, watching documentaries, listening to others, meditating. Professionally, I have committed myself to help and serve others around me, and to give back with the best of my abilities and skills I have.

This past four or five years have been a quite satisfying endeavor for me - it has not been easy at all like when I was just pursuing a happy life. There have been stresses and struggles involved but I feel now that I am a much happier person. 

I’ve recently realized that, besides learning and giving, there is another difficult step in the pursuit of meaning — a spiritual part — it is about love. I still do not quite understand what it really means to love. In general, I think we can learn to love by being more open to life, appreciating people and things, even little things, accepting and content with what we have.

To me as mentioned above, a meaningful life —a life of learning, giving and loving — is more enjoyable and satisfying. We have this capacity, intelligence and compassion to live for more than ourselves. Through this life long journey in pursuit of meaning, we may be able to expand ourselves intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.