One day, my oldest child, who was five at the time, asked if adults were allowed to have sugary foods whenever they wanted.

When she found out they could, she declared that she couldn’t wait to be an adult.

At that age, a kid might imagine that sugar and toys could keep them happy forever. As adults, we know those pleasures can’t possibly deliver a thriving life on their own.

Unfortunately, too many of us trade in sugar for the concept of  “happiness” and imagine that something as simple and one-dimensional as positive emotional experiences can completely satisfy our deepest needs.

We might genuinely believe that other values are guiding our decision-making, but on a practical level, our decisions are influenced by whatever delivers the most moment-to-moment pleasure.

Perhaps more accurately, they’re shaped by whatever promises to help us avoid the things that make us unhappy, such as boredom, discomfort, uncertainty, or plain ol’ hard work.

Why Hedonic Happiness Isn’t Enough

There are many definitions of happiness depending on your context and who you’re talking to. Some are quite thick and have proven to be stronger guides towards living a better life.

Most of my caution is against hedonic happiness, which is about trying to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. It’s not a philosophy that most people outright claim as their north star, but rather, it’s one that we slip into because it fits our instincts and tends to become our default.

3 Reasons Why Hedonic Happiness Falls Short

Such happiness is not wrong, per se, but it’s not enough. Hedonic happiness:

1. Is too Dependent on External Factors

Just look at the world, and you can see that it’s filled with too much senseless suffering. While we can do what we can to stay safe and healthy, sometimes that isn’t enough. A worldview based on such a simple conception of happiness won’t hold up to reality—not when there’s so much outside your control.

2. Is too Fleeting to Build a Life Upon

Happiness, when defined by maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, isn’t sturdy enough to build a big, beautiful life upon. The highest mountaintops of euphoria don’t last, and they don’t compound their value over time like investments in relationships and meaningful work.

3. Neglects Other Aspects of a Balanced Life

Ultimately, happiness doesn’t deliver the goods because it’s only one aspect of the good life we were made to enjoy. It’s not wrong to enjoy pleasure, and certainly not wrong to avoid pain, but modern life, with all of its advantages, has taken these good things for granted and now expects them at the expense of far too much else.

The 5 Pillars of Well-Being

Expanding on his earlier work in resilience and optimism, psychologist Martin Seligman laid out the PERMA model of well-being in his 2011 book, “Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being.”

In his book, Seligman suggests that five different elements make up the building blocks of a person’s overall sense of flourishing.

His contribution to the conversation on well-being is the idea that our subjective evaluation of our own life is not one simple thing called “happiness” but several different components coming together.

I encourage you to reflect on these five points and think about which ones you might be neglecting. The good life is well-rounded and mature in every aspect of what it means to be human.

1. P: Positive Emotions

Positive emotions are about more than just feeling good—they include a broad range of emotions such as peace, hope, gratitude, interest, and joy. Many of these feelings can be cultivated and reinforced by how we approach each day and frame life’s obstacles.

2. E: Engagement

Few things beat those moments when I’m writing and I lose track of time. I’m fully engaged in my work, completely absorbed in ideas, and operating at the peak of my powers. Deep levels of engagement can happen in our work, our hobbies, and even in our interactions with other people.

3. R: Relationships

As social beings, we were made for relationships with one another. A fulfilling life requires the opportunity to be intimate with others, to create love, and to offer mutual support. It’s why parents sacrifice so much freedom to start a family—to create a place where they and others belong together.

4. M: Meaning

It’s strange how consistently the desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves occurs in human nature. We don’t just want to be near this glorious thing—we want to belong to it and serve it. The modern world offers us professional sports as one way to bring meaning, while others, such as practicing a faith, promise something richer.

5. A: Accomplishment

Pursuing goals, being ambitious, and striving for mastery are ways we push beyond comfort and pleasure to achieve something else. What is this something else? It’s a sense of achievement and the feeling that we have contributed to this world. A sense of accomplishment remains one of life’s great gifts for those willing to make the effort.