In many ethical theories, as well as in many people’s individual lives, happiness is of the utmost importance. These theories, and people, seek to maximize happiness, whether it be their own or an entire collectives happiness. However, happiness comes in many different forms. There is shallow happiness, perhaps that which you feel after hearing a joke, which I will hence call pleasure. As well, there is deep happiness, that which comes as the result of resolving a long conflict or struggle, hence called fulfillment. While happiness of both types are no doubt important, fulfillment ought to be what is sought both in broad ethical theories, as well as in each individual life.

An important thing to note about pleasure, is that it is largely fleeting. This gives rise to the phenomenon known as the hedonic treadmill or the tendency for one’s subjective happiness to readjust back to a base level following positive events. This seems quite obvious in everyone’s subjective experience with pleasure. Perhaps we hear a good joke, feel a pleasant sensation, eat some good food; while we may get an instantaneous influx in pleasure, this doesn’t last long. Perhaps even mere minutes after we feel this pleasure, we are back to our baseline, no residual effect remains from what we previously felt. This causes one to constantly have to indulge more and more into these “shallow” activities, eat more food to retain this happiness, bring on this pleasant sensation more to remain just as happy, and so on.

These pleasures seem to be good; we enjoy them and so long as the means we take to achieve them are healthy (to avoid the discussion of drugs and other harmful substances or activities), there don’t appear to be any adverse side effects. However, these pleasures are addictive. These pleasures feel great, this is why we desire them. In moderation, there doesn’t seem to be any issues with indulging in them. But due to their inherent addictiveness, we are drawn more and more towards them. What was once the occasionally indulgence in a delicious dessert is now binge eating; one who was once healthy is now obese. What was once an occasional sexual excursion is now a full-blown sex addiction, one focuses only on attaining sex, as with it is the desirable physical sensation that they adore. So what once started as a healthy, occasional activity is now self-destructive. One’s life becomes consumed by the attainment of these pleasures, and all attention towards other pursuits is lost.

Contrasted with pleasure, fulfillment, while it may also retain some of the addictive tendencies, is healthier, as well as longer-lasting. To further elaborate on what exactly fulfillment is, we need highlight a few examples. The happiness one attains after working towards a long-term goal, perhaps a grade in a class, a job promotion, a goal pertaining towards one’s physical fitness; all of these are not simply instantaneous, they require planning and continued exertion to achieve. As a result, when they are achieved, the effects last longer. When one achieves the A+ they worked so hard towards, this happiness, this fulfillment, continues much longer than the pleasures previously mentioned. While one may have reverted to their baseline 30 minutes after eating a nice slice of apple pie, it may be hours, days or even weeks before one no longer feels the tertiary effects of the achievement of a long-term goal. While the reversion to their base happiness may be inevitable, the achievement of these long-term goals prolongs the time before we reach our baseline again, and keeps our lives happier for longer.

Similar to pleasure, fulfillment may be addictive. However, while the addiction to pleasure may be mostly negative; it distracts us from other pursuits and the continued indulgence in these pleasures may be negative; addiction to fulfillment seems to be mostly positive, not simply for the individual themselves, but for society as a whole. Attached to the notion of fulfillment seems to be the idea of self-betterment. We set long-term goals that we believe will help us to become a better version of ourselves. By achieving this self-betterment, we may bring on several things: an improvement of our skills/character which is beneficial to society, an increase in our baseline happiness as we are in general more satisfied with who we are and lastly, as a result of our desire to feel this happiness again, we create more long-term goals, locking us in a perpetual loop of self-improvement.

While it can be seen that fulfillment is superior to pleasure, both in subjective feeling when attained and as a benefit to society as a whole, what is the proper place of both in one’s life? Surely based on the prior conclusions, it would be naive and wrong to suggest that one ought to only seek pleasure. However, should we seek a mix of both pleasure and fulfillment, or attempt to eliminate pleasure entirely from our list of goals? It seems as though our lives can be measured in two important metrics, how well we feel it is going at any given moment, as well as retrospectively, considering if the sum of our life thus far been good. Due to the existence of the former, it seems that pleasure does have a limited place in one’s life.

While fulfillment may be preferable to pleasure, due to its long-term nature, it is harder to attain. We may go extended periods without achieving a long-term goal. Without pleasure, this could be debilitating. Without some sort of feedback that serves as motivation, we may slip into a depression of sorts. Thus, it would seem that pleasure exists to serve as the occasional motivation in times of prolonged abstinence from the achievement of long-term goals. This also means that we must be able to redirect our pleasure towards not the attainment of more pleasure, but towards the attainment of fulfillment. Depending on one’s individual psychology, this may mean that we ought to introduce more or less pleasure into our life. If one is predisposed to slip into the addictive feedback loop of pleasure, they ought to attempt to severely limit, if not eliminate it entirely from their life. Doing so will allow them to allow them to see their life as better in retrospect, as at any individual moment they may feel less good than if they simply desired only pleasures, but in considering their life as a whole they are more satisfied, due to the achievement of more long-term goals. It seems that the whole life measurement is more important than instantaneous measurement intuitively, as our goal as humans is moreso to live a good life, than to feel good at any given moment.

The recognition of one having lived a good life will allow one to better cope with the imminence of death. It is inevitable (with current technology) that we all will die. As we approach death, our thoughts become more centered around not how we felt at any point in time, but how we view our life as a whole. Perhaps this is due to our inherent desire to not perish, we seek to leave some sort of legacy behind, to continue living even when our consciousness ceases to. Regardless of the reason why we seem to view our lives as measured as a whole, rather than based on how we felt in each individual moment, it appear that it is apart of human nature to do so. This gives us reason to seek fulfillment, rather than pleasure. This allows for our whole, that is our life, to be greater than the sum of its parts, how we felt at any point in time. While a life of pleasure appears to cause our whole to be less than the sum of its parts. So long as it is in our nature to seek a good life, and not to simply feel good at any instant, fulfillment reigns supreme.

“Let people who do not know what to do with themselves in this life, but fritter away their time reading magazines and watching television, hope for eternal life…..The life I want is a life I could not endure in eternity. It is a life of love and intensity, suffering and creation, that makes life worthwhile and death welcome. There is no other life I should prefer. Neither should I like not to die. ” – Walter Kaufmann