There are devoted parents, outstanding teachers, and excellent schools. But no one can say that, overall, our system of education is flourishing. This is one of the many things that leads a majority of Americans to feel that their country is going off, or is in danger of going off, the rails. We didn’t get here because we wanted to get here. We got here, at least in part, because we wanted eudaimonia—we wanted to flourish—but without putting in the work. Paul wrote, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” I have learned. It took time and practice, paying attention and perseverance.
People want to flourish. Aristotle surmised that the most basic longing people have is for eudaimonia, usually translated as happiness but perhaps better understood as contentedness of mind and soul. It’s a sense that one’s life is worthwhile and on track, that is one is living the way he or she should—and it’s a good, beneficial life. When St. Paul wrote that he had “learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11), it seems that he was expressing something like eudaimonia.
People want to feel that their lives are going well. What’s often forgotten is something classical philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, and also Jesus and St. Paul agreed on, namely, that the path to contentedness of soul isn’t the chasing of contentment itself but hard work over a long period within the context of a virtuous life.
Aristotle writes of the toil involved in becoming a person of integrity—the kind of person who has arrived at a place where he or she can enjoy a life of honesty and know that he or she is trusted. Paul speaks of a contentment and peace that “transcends all understanding” (Phil. 4:7), but he also uses the metaphors of running, fighting, and boxing. Jesus speaks of peace but also of crosses.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote that God had given all people a right to “pursue happiness,” he was drawing on this ancient thought. Happiness—eudaimonia—human flourishing—is something that’s pursued. It takes time, work, persistence, perseverance; it involves a longstanding pursuit of some kind of excellence, the possession of which, along with a virtuous moral life, can bring a sense of contentment and thriving.
A persistent problem lies in the desire to arrive at contentment without putting in the effort. Aristotle noticed a tendency to confuse eudaimonia with amusement.
