Priorities

I’ve always loved Aristotle. I’ve read up on some of his work, in and out of a wonderful Intro to Philosophy class I took. What I particularly enjoy are his ideas on how crucial happiness is to life. He asserts that the search for happiness is the most important part of our lives; however, he does not mean “happiness” in a selfish or pleasure-seeking way. It’s more of a way of trying to accomplish a full life of fulfilled potential, and his term for it is “eudaimonia”.

What really interested me in his discussions of happiness was his reasoning about the central role of priorities. Aristotle posited that every goal or area in our lives tends to contribute to a greater one; in theory, all these goals contribute to our overall happiness. Happiness is the only thing that does not lend to anything else; we may do a lot of things in order to achieve happiness, but our intent in achieving happiness is happiness itself. What I take from this is that, if my goals lead to each other, and they all lead to my personal happiness, any unhappiness I encounter may be due either to a failed goal or to the fact that my goals are out of order.

Yes, I realize it’s a confusing set up, but hang with me here. The point is that priorities are crucial. This may not sound like news, but sometimes the things that seem like they should be high priority fail because other things need to come first. For instance, I may place occupational security high on the list, ahead of personal interests or or social life, but if I am not happily interested in my job, or it causes me to spend inadequate amounts of time with those I love, it does not matter how financially secure I am–my career will fail me.

At this point in my life, as I approach graduation in May, I am taking this to heart. I am focusing on reordering my goals to reflect the ends I really want to achieve, taking into account areas of my life that have been up to this point rather neglected.

I guess one thing that bothers me about Aristotle, though, is that he saw happiness as limited to this lifetime; there is no afterlife in his philosophy. However, I do feel that Christianity can be very easily embedded into his ideas. Certainly, the idea of disordered priorities applies in my spiritual walk; for a while now my prayer life has taken a back seat to graduate school applications, part-time jobs, relationships, and school work. How will any of those things make me happy if they do not reflect God’s will for my life? If I get things back in the right order and put God first, I’m much more likely to find joy in future endeavors.

Aristotle also brought up another intriguing idea–the “Golden Mean.” This involves doing and having everything in moderation, with no extremes and much control. I really do think he is on to something there, and I think it is an idea worth living by. I’ve attached a link relating this concept to StarWars, which sounds ridiculous but actually works.

Lastly, I just love this quote in relation to this subject: “Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot.”— Aristotle