Deserve.

van Gogh, Glass with Carnations, 1890

We are not alive in order to be happy, but we must try to deserve happiness.

 

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to Theo van Gogh, Sunday, 10 December 1882

Responsibility.

Steve adds to Kurt's discussion ... 

Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.  

Eudaimonic orientation is not pleasuring-seeking, rather talents are put to work for a larger purpose: to serve.  By making the most of personal skills, giving provides a greater willingness to help, regardless of costs. The result is a byproduct of that action, though not its sole aim.  Pushed to develop and refine the process, a commitment to growth and development is its own reward, the spirit of eudaimonia. It's the opposite of virtue-signalling hedonics.

Accept.

The delicate muses lose their head if their attention is once diverted. Perhaps if you were successful abroad in talking and dealing with men, you would not come back to your bookshelf and your task. When the spirit chooses you for its scribe to publish some commandment, it makes you odious to men and men odious to you, and you shall accept that loathsomeness with joy. The moth must fly to the lamp, and you must solve those questions though you die. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Letters and Social Aims

Enthusiasm.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Sir Winston Churchill

Eudaimonia.

O'Keeffe, Ladder at Abiquiu Ranch, n/d

I think it's so foolish for people to want to be happy. Happy is so momentary--you're happy for an instant and then you start thinking again. Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.

Georgia O'Keeffe

Kurt points to an article on eudaimonic well-being.

For more on exhilarating perplexity, human flourishing, and other good habits ... HERE. 

Georgia also said, "It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.”  What she means is, no balls, no banners ... be the ball.

Conducive.

eudaemonic (adj.)

also eudemonic, "producing happiness," 1856, from Greek eudaimonikos "conducive to happiness," from eudaimonia "happiness," from eu "good" + daimon "guardian, genius".

Eudaimonia

Happiness. 

Flourishing. 

Well-being. 

An earlier post posed the question, "Who are you?" For me, this is a difficult question to ask. I've been thinking about it a great deal as I have been reading Derrick Jensen's book, Walking On Water: Reading, Writing, Revolution. The book speaks of the Aristotelian idea of eudaimonia ... well-being; how well we match our actions with our natural gifts to be. Ahhh ... that's better. 

Thomas Jefferson's concept of "tranquil permanent felicity" is in accord with Aristotle and Jenson. Jefferson was, at least philosophically, a man of temperance. In his pursuit of happiness he espoused "a just equilibrium of the passions."

My temperament is sanguine. I steer my bark with Hope in the head, leaving fear astern. My hopes indeed sometimes fail; but not oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy. There are, I acknowledge, even in the happiest life, some terrible convulsions, heavy set-offs against the opposite page of the account. I have often wondered for what good end the sensations of Grief could be intended. All our other passions, within proper bounds, have a useful object. 

His sense of ease came as a result of what he called a balanced imagination. He knew that disorder, as far as the spirit is concerned, disrupted the hope of attaining any notion of hope. 

As Andrew Burstein wrote in his book, Jefferson’s Secrets: Death & Desire at Monticello, "Happiness can just as easily be said to derive from life of the body as the mind." 

Leonardo ... "The world needs dreamers. The world needs doers. But the world really needs dreamers who do." 

This is where it is starting to come together for me. Jensen makes a convincing argument that "eudaimonia" ... happiness, well-being (which works better for me as being well) ... is actually "fittingness," how well your actions match your gifts. Match who you are. Gifts. Talents. Moral good-use. Virtue. Hmmm ... I'm learning. 

An informative article on eudaimonia here.