Bertrand Russell on How to Find Happiness — Daily Philosophy
In his book “The Conquest of Happiness”, Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) presents a theory of happiness that is broadly Aristotelian. Russell thinks that what makes us happy is an active life, directed by a deep and sustained interest in the world. What makes us unhappy is the undue fixation on our own person and our everyday problems.
In the previous two posts ( one, two), we talked about Bertrand Russell and his theory of what makes us unhappy: competition, anxiety, envy and the fear of the opinion of others are just a few common factors that contribute to an unhappy life.
Today, we want to see what Russell thinks about how to become happy. Let’s dive in!
Zest and happiness
According to Russell, one of the main ingredients of a happy life is what he calls a “friendly interest in things”:
“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”
This way of approaching the world will lead to a life of “zest,” as he calls it: it will enable us to approach situations with genuine interest, and thus will make us able to derive pleasure from engaging with the world:
“We are all prone to the malady of the introvert, who, with the manifold spectacle of the world spread out before him, turns away and gazes only upon the emptiness within. But let us not imagine that there is anything grand about the introvert’s unhappiness.”
Children have this spontaneous interest in everything: “The world is full of surprises to them, and they are perpetually engaged with ardour in the pursuit of knowledge, not, of course, of scholastic knowledge, but of the sort that consists in acquiring familiarity with the objects that attract their attention.”
Grown-up humans, in contrast, often lose their interest in the world when they grow up. One reason is that one gets used to the world. The things that surround us lose their novelty and their ability to surprise us, like they did when we were children. But, as Russell emphasises, this is often an illusion. To the open, inquiring mind, the world is still…
