Can human beings achieve happiness?

Abstract

The human being moves the pieces of his own life to achieve his happiness. In the work, the very possibility of achieving happiness is radically questioned, starting from a kind ofagnosiaabout itsconception asafinalstage. Theapproved ideas of happinessarestillalivein our day, increasingly and in more disciplines, especially in Western societies (Bueno, 2011). It draws attention to the two-sided aspect of happiness, physical, on the one hand, and spiritual on the other. It is concluded that it is very difficult for us to achieve the maximum and permanent degree of happiness or complete happiness. We may assume the weight and responsibility of achieving maximum happiness but, like Sisyphus, carrying the gigantic stone to the top of the mountain over and over again, we can never stay there, in that ideal or emotional territory that we know little about and that is shaped like an asymptote. With regard to the possibility of being happier to a greater or lesser extent, the proposal of Abraham Maslow’s gradual pyramid is suggestive. The conclusion is optimistic, understanding that relative happiness encompasses a very variable range and is not an end point. It is proposed to modify the meaning of the term “happiness” in the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy of Language, to identify it with “a variety of states of pleasant spiritual and physical satisfaction”