What Is a Happy Life?

To answer these two questions very directly, I shall begin with one assumption that we all can agree upon. That is this: anyone who takes his or her own life must have been unhappy with life. Though several internal and external factors might have contributed to that final decision, very central were hopelessness, dissatisfaction, and a desire to bring about immediate change.

Hopelessness (or loss of hope) is a state of belief and feeling that a better time is not possible anymore. Dissatisfaction is what ensues when one’s desires (or hunger) become unrelenting and overwhelming. The desire for immediate change is a cry for a happier life—not just any change.

Understandably, reasonably, or logically, were there enough hope, and diminished hunger, a happier life could have been conceivable, with suicide out of consideration.

Hope seems, therefore, directly, and positively related to happiness whereas hunger has a negative association—making hope and hunger seem as the opposite sides of the same coin. This fascinating relationship between hope, hunger, and happiness can be best and most accurately expressed in a simple mathematical language—which precisely says that: Hope / Hunger = Happiness.

This equation, which I have dubbed The Triple-H Equation, is essentially implying the following:

1. Happiness is best assured when hope is high, and hunger is low.
2. When hope is high, it lessens the pain of hunger, and when hunger is overwhelming, it dampens the feeling of hope.
3. Happiness is not possible in the absence of hope.
4. No one can have a happy life when hunger is overwhelming.
5. A happy life is essentially a life that is full of hope.

When we think of happiness as a feeling of joy or satisfaction, the face validity of this equation is unquestionably strong since hunger should decrease happiness while hope is naturally expected to increase happiness. Humans as “futurists” are heavily obsessed with the future and there is no better antidote for the uncertainties of tomorrow than hope—the feeling and the belief that all will be well.

Beyond the face validity of the Triple-H Equation, the literature overview and empirical analysis of Pleeging, Burger, and J. van Exel (2019) show a strong positive relationship between hope and happiness. Everett Worthington Jr. (2020) has demonstrated that more hopeful people are happier and healthier than unhappy people. Also, the Triple-H Equation is well corroborated by the Desire-Fulfillment Theory of Chris Heathwood (2014), which holds that the fulfillment of a desire (or hunger) results in happiness.

Additionally, the Human Flourishing Program findings of Harvard University, Ruut Veenhoven’s Newsletter 3(2015), and T. C. Bailey, et al. (2007) all corroborate the Triple-H Equation.

Anecdotally as well as experientially, we all know that a hopeful disposition usually makes one feel happier, and a happy feeling strengthens our hope for the future, whereas unfulfilled desires make us unhappy.

How we perceive the future greatly affects how we feel in the present. Accordingly, during a successful and flourishing life, one’s subjective feeling of well-being can precipitously drop the moment one receives news of a fatal medical diagnosis—coming from a doctor’s phone.

In conclusion, a happy life can be correctly defined as a life that is full of hope.

Practically and mathematically speaking, therefore, when the hope score of any individual is divided by his or her hunger score, an authentic happiness score called the personal happiness index (PHI) is obtained. Any man or woman, therefore, with the highest PHI could convincingly be crowned the happiest living human—for being the most hopeful and least hungry—in the world.

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Happiness coaches, research psychologists, directors of human resources, chief happiness officers, happiness seekers, and advocates should find PHI very informative and practically useful.

To illustrate how PHI can be very clinically important, here is a case report:

As all practicing physicians do, it is routine in my medical clinic that the vital signs (pulse, body temperature, and blood pressure) of every patient be taken and recorded in the chart before I get to see the patient—regardless of the reasons for the visit. Unique in my clinic is that the PHI of every patient is also required. When a vital sign is abnormal—the underlying reason must be determined and attended to as a priority.

On one rainy day, as I was reviewing the chart of a 19-year-old patient, the vital signs were all normal except that her PHI was 0.127—the lowest I had ever seen. Just as I would have done in the case of a high fever or very elevated blood pressure, I sent the patient to the nearest hospital emergency room for admission—with a handwritten note to the ER lead physician—explaining the need for admission and a psychiatric, or clinical psychology consult within twenty-four hours. Despite my handwritten note followed by a telephone call, the ER physician was not impressed given the very normal blood pressure of 116/72, pulse of 78, and temperature of 98.7.

The ER physician sent the patient home against my advice, and she was given the next day's appointment at the outpatient psychiatric clinic. The patient, as I had feared, did not show up for her appointment and all subsequent phone calls by my nurse and me to the troubled teenager were unanswered. We later learned that she had taken her own life—by overdosing on a bottle full of unknown pills.

This poignant incident made me a stronger advocate for routine determination of PHI—as an authentic well-being score.