14th - 21st Oct 2007

Last week, the anonymous quotation “Whoever dies happiest wins” led to a number of quotations about ‘happiness’ in the Additional Thoughts section. But is happiness the goal of life? People have suggested many goals in life including Nirvana, God, loving children…
Psychologist Erich Fromm suggests that we only find fulfilment in ourselves (apologies for the specifically male references - take them in the general sense of referring to both male and female):

“As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfilment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except the one where they can be found – in himself.”

Erich Fromm (1900 – 1980; from Man for Himself, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975).

Additional Thought
Now for a spiritual perspective which contrasts with Erich Fromm:

“To find fulfilment man has to transcend himself, to discover a dimension of being beyond both the physical and the mental, and where the physical world itself is transfigured and is no more subject to corruption and death. This is the world of the resurrection, the ‘new creation’ of St Paul.”

Bede Griffiths OSB (from The Universal Christ, ed Peter Spink, DLT, 1993)