The Four Levels of Happiness

Robert J. Spitzer, PhD (in philosophy and physics no less) has formulated a theory of happiness that I have found quite useful. He explicates it thoroughly in his excellent book, "Healing the Culture." His group also has a website.

The four levels:
I. Sensory gratification. Ice cream, sex, comfort, Rich Corinthian Leather, etc. Short lived, intense, immediate, unambiguous, self-centered. A good PART of a complete human. Has a crisis if this is where you live all the time: intense feelings of emptiness.

II. Ego happiness. Also predominantly about self, self advancement, winning, gaining advantage. Provides energy to do better, to "run the race well", but is short term, does not last. Crisis if you stay here: bitterness, jealousy, contempt, isolation, paranoia. Note that level II is our natural set-point, the place we settle on if we do not actively manage ourselves.

III. Good beyond your self. Justice, love, community, service to others, greater good. Longer term than I or II, requires some effort and training to come to realize the depth of joy attainable here. But there is even a crisis here! Doing good, justice is wonderful but it will always fall short of perfection. Your capacity to do these acts of service also inevitably falls away with age or sickness.

IV. Ultimate, perfect good. We are born and wired with a desire for perfection in love, goodness, justice. That is not reachable on earth. For believers, faith in God provides level IV happiness, seeking Him.

Read the article!

The Holy Happiness Project

Welcome! I'm a Christian, physician, father and I believe that most people want to be happier. To that end, I'm starting this Blog to bring various ideas up that you might find useful. We will also be blogging along with a class at Hope Fellowship Church in south Denver to see what we find along the way this year. Our textbooks will be, of course, the Bible and an interesting work by a religious Jew named Dennis Prager entitled "Happiness is a Serious Problem."

A quote from the book, to show just how important this issue is:
"Unhappy, let alone angry, religious people provide more persuasive arguments for atheism and secularism than do all the arguments of atheists."

So, we're off! Don't worry, be happy!