There’s a science to everything.

Everything we do in life is for a reason. And so, quite naturally, for ages humans have wondered: For what reason do I exist?

Some men chase women, some women chase money, some of both chase vodka with the soft drink of choice, yet every such chase leads to the same pot at the end of the rainbow: happiness.

“Happiness,” said Aristotle, “is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

Armed with the above insight into the very reason for our existence, does not common-sense suggest it would be wise to inquire with the very man widely considered the smartest person in history?

If by chance you were to Google genius definition, notice the following incredible inclusion:

Doesn’t seeing an actual person’s last name — Einstein — listed along with abstract nouns stand out like seeing Shaquille O’Neal in a room filled with gymnasts?

In short, because writing is nothing but thinking on paper, to read the thoughts of another is to essentially converse with them. And so, who better to ask about the secret to happiness than genius personified?

Einstein’s Formula for a Happy Life

A few days before Einstein twirled into the Reaper’s grim arms, his assistant — Dukas — found him in the hospital bed, “in agony, unable to lift his head.”

Yet on the very next day, a mere 24 hours or so away from his death-day, Einstein “asked Dukas to get him his glasses, papers, and pencil, and he proceeded to jot down a few calculations.”

“He worked as long as he could,” noted biographer Walter Issacson, “and when the pain got too great he went to sleep,” for the final time. Indeed, Einstein died doing the one thing he loved most — working. Ah, circumstances reveal character!

“Genius is one percent inspiration,” said Einstein, “and 99 percent perspiration.” Indeed, it’s not by accident that no one has ever become great by accident. After all, as Einstein once noted: “Only a monomaniac gets what we commonly refer to as results.”

Show me someone great and I’ll show you someone obsessed. Besides, what more is “greatness” than the child of an obsession?

For the above reason, when Einstein was asked for the secret to a happy life, though the questioner expected an answer long and sour, Einstein kept it short and sweet:

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”

Here lies Einstein’s formula for a happy life.

Work — the Ultimate Shelter from Life’s Storms

Given that great minds think alike for the same reason passengers boarded the sametrain of thought inevitably end up at the same destination, we should hardly be surprised that Newton and Einstein — arguably the two greatest scientists in history — when confronted with life’s storms both used the same formula for a happy life.

In 1665, the bubonic plague struck London. Never before nor since has the world seen anything like the deadly pandemic. And just as a pandemic shut down today’s stores and universities, the same held true back then. History repeats itself indeed.

While the world’s stage was seemingly crumbling underneath his feet, Isaac Newton applied the formula for a happy life. How? He merely tied his life to an abstract goal, not to physical people or concrete things. Over the span of roughly eighteen months, Newton would revolutionize science.

Newton was later asked how he discovered the law of gravity. He replied:

“By thinking about it all the time.”

In short, because Newton had hitched his star to an abstract goal, which remains forever fixed, and not to life — which is forever unpredictable — he in effect found shelter from life’s storms.

When Einstein’s wife Elsa died, needless to say — he was crushed. After all, according to Isaacson, Elsa served as a somewhat maternal figure to Einstein.

“She told him when to eat and where to go,” Isaacson notes. “She packed his suitcases and doled out his pocket money. In public, she was protective of the man she called ‘the Professor.’ ”

Fortunately for Einstein, his formula for a happy life served as shelter from the storm. “As long as I am able to work, I must not and will not complain, because work is the only thing that gives substance to life.”

In Closing: Dream With Mind + Chase with Body = the Formula for a Happy Life

When the holy man was asked does he feel good due to having given up all the worldly pleasures, he answered: “It’s not so much that I feel good, but rather I no longer feel bad.”

What Einstein fully grasped — regarding his concise formula for a happy life — appears to boil down to this:

“Happiness” can be likened to a supermodel, all glammed up for the runway. Contentment, however, is that same model when she returns home at night and then removes all the makeup.

Or to put it another way, “He is richest,” said Socrates, “who is content with the least.”

Indeed, the best things in life are not only free but they’re not even “things.” After all, never has a hand touched love. Never has an eye spotted peace. Never has a nose sniffed dreams. Here lies the DNA of Einstein’s formula for a happy life.

From aardvark to zebra, we humans are the only creatures to have ever graced the world’s stage that can “dream.” To picture a goal with our third eye coupled with pouring our heart and soul into manifesting it before our two eyes is the very reason for this magical gift called a “mind.”

The above insight may have best been summed up by a character in the classic play The Secret of Freedom:

“The only thing about a man that is man is his mind. Everything else you can find in a pig or a horse.”

Perhaps there’s much truth in the saying that we humans only value things we pay for.

Like those other abstract pleasures which came freely packaged at birth, such as love and faith, perhaps we take for granted our gift for dreaming up worthwhile goals, not to mention the ability to wed our lives to such dreaming.

Because example is better than precept, perhaps the occasion calls for ending this piece by recounting a real-life instance of how using Einstein’s formula for a happy life sheltered one of my good friends from a brutal storm.

One of my closest friends in college endured the ultimate heartbreak. Her high school sweetheart and fiancé left her for another woman. To say my pal was devastated would be an understatement. Yet somehow…someway she embodied Maya Angelou’s grand vision of a Phenomenal Woman.

She simply rose from the canvas of doubt and fear, dusted herself off, and then poured all her time and energies into her studies. A year or so later she got accepted into Loyola Law School.

Today, she’s not only happily married but also a successful attorney. In short, my pal used Einstein’s formula for a happy life.

The Takeaway

Because Einstein was a mathematician at heart, he couldn’t help but reduce the odds of achieving happiness down to an equation. “You have to learn the rules of the game,” he concluded, “and then you have to play better than anyone else.”

Dear reader, so far as the Game of Life is concerned, it appears the rules are such as to demand that we — the only creatures armed with an imagination — use it specifically to envision an abstract goal, better known as a “dream.”

Perhaps the above insight explains why Einstein went so far as to have called “imagination more important than knowledge.” In short, though wedding your life to dream-chasing may not sound like the most glorious endeavor, as Einstein noted — such a course is nevertheless your safest bet.

Most of all, given that no mortal knows for certain what the next moment has in store — from triumph to tragedy — wisdom dictates treating your life as a boat and your goal as an anchor, which will, in turn, lend stability during life’s storms.

In short, Einstein’s formula for a happy lifecan best be summed as follows:

Find out what you do best; then, find out how you can pay most of your attention to doing it; then, get someone to pay you for having paid most of your attention to mastering that one thing.

Sources

[1] Bartlett, Robert (2012) Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

[2] Isaacson, Walter (2007) Einstein: His Life and Universe

[3] Tucci, Niccolo (1947) The Great Foreigner