![]() ![]() ![]() If exercise is promoted because it produces health benefits (as is most often the case in exercise recommendations), the goal seems to be ultimately to increase people’s happiness (even if it is not directly stated). As they noted, ‘Healthy and sick people can have equally meaningful lives, but the healthy people are happier than sick ones’. (2013) showed that health plays an important role in terms of happiness, but is irrelevant for meaning. Sport and exercise are often promoted to people because of health benefits. There are some things that bring us both happiness and meaning, but there are also things that contribute to happiness but not meaning, and vice versa. Yet, they consider eudaimonic experiences to be strongly positive, which might distinguish the concept from meaning (see previous blog on positive and negative experiences).Īs I have previously mentioned in the blog, social psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues have shown that happiness (considered in the hedonic sense) and meaning are partly different versions of “a good life”. Eudaimonia is often thought to be closely linked to meaning, purpose and values, whereas hedonia is more like an experience of enjoyment and satisfaction and absence of unpleasant emotions and experiences (for example, Huta and Waterman, 2014).Īs Huta and Waterman (2014) clarified, “According to the classical understanding of eudaimonia, the term was not intended to refer to a subjective state but to what was worth pursuing in life.” In that sense, it resembles what many existentialists consider the questions about meaning. Psychologists have recently taken interest in the philosophical debates on the difference between hedonia and eudaimonia, that are often understood as two different conceptions of happiness. ![]() Happiness can be understood in many different ways. Two candidates often rise above the others: happiness and meaning. Philosophers throughout history have sought to understand what constitutes a good life. ![]()
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