“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.”
–Mark Twain
Two of the great paradoxes of life are that: usually, the harder we try to be happy, the less happiness we will experience in life; and the happiest people are often those who do not place a high priority on personal happiness and do not specifically seek it.
When we are first born, we think that we are the center of the universe. If we are hungry, we cry for food, and if we want attention, we cry until we get it. If we have responsive parents, we soon learn that when we want something, we can usually get it by demanding it. But, at about age two, we begin to realize that we are not the only ones with needs. There are other people around us who also have needs that must be fulfilled, and we must learn to be patient so that other people’s needs can be met as well as our own. As we continue to mature emotionally, we gradually find that we can get satisfaction from helping to fulfill other people’s needs as well as from having our own needs met.
During those first years of life, most of us learn the importance of caring about other people’s needs as well as our own. We gradually come to realize that we are all traveling on the same ship of life and that we have obligations to others as well as to ourselves. Some people are not very receptive to the idea that they have responsibilities to others and that there is more to life than pleasing themselves. In fact, some people refuse to ever accept the notion that they should care about the happiness of others as well as their own. Such people are called narcissists. They focus so much attention and love upon themselves that they have no time or energy left to care about others. They are totally wrapped up in themselves, and they care about others only for what others can do for them.
Fortunately, most of us are not narcissists. We have varying capacities to love and care about the needs of others. Some people devote their entire lives to serving others while other people look out pretty much for themselves, but not to the total exclusion of everybody else.
It is my personal belief that if we had an objective way to measure happiness, we would find that the more emphasis that a person puts on helping others, the more personal happiness that person will experience. I also believe that the happiest people in this world are those who seek the least happiness for themselves. Those people who are selflessly trying to bring happiness to others end up bringing happiness to themselves also, although they were not specifically seeking personal happiness. In the words of Sir James Barrie, “Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”
Think about it.
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Copyright 2026
Allen W. Smith
