By Dr. Lori Butterworth, Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist
I hear the same thing from patients again and again, sometimes through tears: “I just want to be happy.” When I ask what that means, there’s often a long pause. Happiness feels essential, but strangely hard to define.
The ancient Greeks described two kinds of happiness: hedonia, the pursuit of pleasure and feeling good, and eudaimonia, a deeper sense of well-being that comes from living with purpose, values, and integrity.
Lori Butterworth
Modern life thrives on hedonia. On social media, happiness is portrayed as the outfit, the social life, the pose, and smiling family. What we don’t see are the failures, the loneliness, the boredom, the self-doubt. The message from social media is powerful: to be happy, life should look and feel good all of the time.
Parents buy into this message too. When their children feel anxious, frustrated, sad, or unmotivated, parents often rush to find a therapist to fix the feeling, smooth the path, and remove the discomfort. But the ability to tolerate discomfort is a path to eudaimonia, the deeper kind of happiness.
Stoic philosophers like the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, argued that happiness was never meant to be pursued directly, rather happiness emerges as a byproduct of how we live. To find happiness, you can’t chase it any more than you chase a shadow. Instead, as we build character, and act according to our values, happiness becomes the byproduct.
This philosophy shows up repeatedly in my clinical work, especially when I use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT shifts the focus from How do I get rid of this feeling? to Who do I want to be? What is important to me? What actions can I take to move me in that direction, even when it’s uncomfortable?
Recently, a young man I’ve been working with for some time paused mid-session and said, with surprise, “Oh, I get it now. You’re not asking about what I should do, You’re asking about the person I want to become.”
Working hard and accomplishing something meaningful builds self-confidence and self-respect. Mastery matters. Effort matters. Pride in earned success matters.
When achievements are expressions of values—perseverance, responsibility, curiosity, courage—we learn something powerful: I can do hard things, even when it doesn’t feel good.
Happiness is not the goal; it is the byproduct of living a life in alignment with your values. I often share novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand’s definition with my patients: Happiness is the freedom to achieve your values.
So, for parents who want the best for our children, rather than asking, “Is my child happy?” we might ask:
- Are we helping them discover what matters to them?
- Are we teaching them to tolerate frustration in service of growth?
- Are we modeling values-based living in our own lives?
- Are achievements tied to purpose and meaning, not just approval or comparison?
“I just want to be happy” is one of the most human longings I hear in my office, spoken softly, urgently, sometimes through tears. But happiness is not something we can aim at directly or secure in advance for ourselves or our children. It resists being chased. What we can do is help build lives organized around purpose, values, effort, and integrity—and allow room for discomfort along the way.
When children learn who they want to be, not just what they want to feel, they develop something far sturdier than fleeting pleasure. They learn self-respect and resilience. Happiness doesn’t need to be pursued. More often than not, it arrives quietly, as the byproduct of a life lived on purpose.
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Dr. Lori Butterworth is a child and adolescent psychologist and the founder of the Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Jacob’s Heart Children’s Cancer Support Services. For more information about mental health support for your child and family, contact Lori at 831-222-0052 or visit CCAMH.org. The Center offers evidence-based youth mental health care and free resources for parents.