Who is the happiest person you've ever seen?

Something we’ve been thinking about

In Herodotus’s Histories, the extremely wealthy Lydian king Croesus hosts the Athenian sage Solon and has his servants show off the royal treasure. Then he asks Solon who is the happiest man he has ever seen, expecting to be told it was himself. Solon names Tellus of Athens, an ordinary man whose city did well, who lived to see his children and grandchildren grow up, and who died honorably in battle and was buried with public honors. He adds a warning: fortune can still reverse, so count no man happy until he is dead.

How we see it through leadership economics

Croesus expected his wealth to be the point. Solon’s answer is that the question cannot be settled yet: happiness that rests on circumstances remains unsettled for as long as circumstances can change. The happiest person is the one who builds happiness on things within their control. If Tellus found his happiness in being an honorable soldier, that lay entirely within his control, whatever fortune did with the rest.

There is a reason the Serenity Prayer asks for the wisdom to tell what can be changed from what cannot. Staking our worth on things we cannot control is like playing a game where we do not know the rules, and where the rules themselves can change. The brain treats that condition, ambiguity, differently from ordinary uncertainty: an unknown outcome in a game we understand can even be a thrill, but an unknown connection between effort and outcome registers as a threat. We experience lower dopamine and increased stress hormones, and the quality of our thinking drops.

None of this is to say we shouldn’t reach for hard things. It argues instead for where to place our identity while we reach for those things, such as on our choices, our discipline, and how we treat the people around us. From there, it is possible to be content in every circumstance. That contentment does not mean always smiling, but rather deeply feeling life and its frequent moments of wonder.

A line we’re sitting with

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul