11 May Do you ever feel the need to choose between truth and happiness?
Which Is More Important: Truth or Happiness?
Could it be that Truth leads to Happiness and vice versa?
Published on May 3, 2011 by Raj Raghunathan, Ph.D
In one of my favorite scenes from the movie The Matrix, Morpheus (played by Lawrence Fishburne) poses Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) with a choice between two pills-a red pill and a blue pill. "Take the blue pill," says Morpheus, "and the story ends [here]. You awake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe."
"You take the red pill," he continues, "you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: All I'm offering is the truth, nothing more."
Morpheus thus offers Neo a choice between "life as usual," and "knowing the Truth."
If offered a similar choice, most of us would, I imagine, choose as Neo did: take the red (Truth) pill.
Let me now act like Morpheus and pose a slightly different—and more difficult—question to you: supposing I offer you the choice between "knowing the Truth" and "being Happy." If you choose the former, you will know the answers to all of life's big questions, such as, "Is there a God?" "What is the purpose of life?" etc., but you may not be happy. If you choose the latter, you will lead a happy and fulfilling life from this moment forward, but you may never know the answers to life's big questions.
Which would you choose?
Over the past two years, I have routinely posed this question to the students in my Creativity and Leadership class and, generally speaking, my students slightly favor Happiness to Truth. Specifically, about 58% of the students choose "Happiness," and the rest (about 42%) choose "Truth."
At first blush, this result might appear to contradict what the happiness researchers say, namely, that happiness is everyone's most important goal. It would seem, from my results, that quite a few people are more interested in knowing the Truth than in being Happy.
However, such a conclusion is not necessarily valid…
…if you're finding this article interesting then you can read more HERE
And as always, we'd love to know your thoughts so please CLICK HERE TO GO TO OUR FACEBOOK PAGE and have your say
As for my say…well I think, as this article almost says, that the two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, I'd argue that the ultimate happiness comes from seeing and knowing the ultimate truth (in all its glory and with all its blemishes). But that's just my opinion; what do you think…?