DOES BEING WISE MAKE YOU HAPPIER?

Mu.

This really isn’t a sensible question. Asking whether being wise makes you happy is about as sensible as asking whether being spiritual makes you fat, or being an animal lover makes you strong.

The first thing the wise will teach you is that you don’t find happiness by seeking happiness. You won’t find it by seeking wisdom either, although you are more likely to find it by seeking wisdom than you are by seeking happiness.

There is some positive correlation between wisdom and happiness, although it’s probably not a particularly strong correlation.

Celestial Koan has written several books in which the topic of happiness does receive some coverage. In particular readers may find CK’s Wisdom: On Loving Yourself Properly has some significant wisdoms concerning how to lead a meaningful life that includes love, and respect. It guides readers around many of the pitfalls of life. It’s not intended to result in happiness, but it probably contributes significantly to finding some.

Nobody ever suggested that Socrates or Plato were the happiest men on Earth. King Solomon was supposedly the wisest of all, and was purported to have written a whole book (Ecclesiastes) about his failure to find happiness, despite having every luxury and a harem of around a thousand of the fairest. Of course, he didn’t have Wikipedia or cable TV.

Being wise can make you enemies. That doesn’t make for happiness.

On the other hand, the wise do avoid making most of the elementary mistakes that trip others up, and lead to consequent misery.

In general terms, you are better off being wise than not, so that probably means you are happier too.

In general terms the rich are better off than the poor too, but riches certainly aren’t any guarantee of happiness, so “being better off” is a term that bears further scrutiny. Some of the poorest countries on Earth rate very highly on the happiness index, and the richest are well down the list. And then again, a lot depends on how you measure happiness. 2018 UN Happiness Report - see pages 20 to 22. Note that this is VERY different to the Happy Planet Index where countries such as Vanuatu and Indonesia score very highly.