Every Friday, Dennis Prager devotes an hour of his radio show to the subject of happiness, a subject he also wrote a book on. Last week, he raised some questions that got me thinking. One of his points was that true happiness is earned. Do you think this is true? I guess I’d say that sometimes happiness is earned, the type that is akin to pride in accomplishment. Sometimes it’s nice to think, “I did that, even if no one else appreciates it, it took struggle and work and I didn’t think I could, but I did that hard thing.” That’s a good, happy feeling.

But sometimes, happiness just kind of alights upon you in the moment. You don’t earn it, it just finds you. Maybe something you did or are allowed that moment to happen, so perhaps in a sense you earned it, but that sure isn’t always obvious to me. So I guess I’d argue with Dennis a bit on that one; I don’t think happiness is always earned. I know I really treasure those occasions, sometimes full days, when I just feel happy and contented for no obvious reason.

Dennis also says happiness is a moral obligation. Do you think that is true? I do. We owe it to the people we love and spend our time with not to inflict our troubles and bad moods on them. We want to share our troubles in a sense, but at the same time we want to do it with grace and gratitude for the good things in our lives, which I hope is those people we live with. Sometimes it’s a challenge to (almost) always present a happy face to those we are closest to, but I think it is a kind of moral obligation because those are the people we influence the most.