Do you prefer to pursue a happy life or a meaningful life? What are the main differences in your view?

a happy life could just make you smile from the outside. but a meaningful life tends to make your heart smile.

I personally prefer a meaningful life. I also believe that a meaningful life results in a happier after-life.

A research by Stanford Graduate School of Business found that "happiness was linked to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaningfulness went with being a giver rather than a taker". The research identified the following five key differences between meaningfulness and happiness:

1. Getting what you want and need

While satisfying desires was a reliable source of happiness, it had nothing to do with a sense of meaning. For example, healthy people are happier than sick people, but the lives of sick people do not lack meaning.

2. Past, present and future

Happiness is about the present, and meaning is about linking the past, present and future. When people spend time thinking about the future or past, the more meaningful, and less happy, their lives become. On the other hand, if people think about the here and now, they are happier.

3. Social life

Connections to other people are important both for meaning and happiness. But the nature of those relationships is how they differ. Deep relationships – such as family – increase meaning, while spending time with friends may increase happiness but had little effect on meaning. Time with loved ones involves hashing out problems or challenges, while time with friends may simply foster good feelings without much responsibility.

4. Struggles and stresses

Highly meaningful lives encounter lots of negative events and issues, which can result in unhappiness. Raising children can be joyful but it is also connected to high stress – thus meaningfulness – and not always happiness. While the lack of stress may make one happier – like when people retire and no longer have the pressure of work demands – meaningfulness drops.

5. Self and personal identity

If happiness is about getting what you want, then meaningfulness is about expressing and defining yourself. A life of meaning is more deeply tied to a valued sense of self and one's purpose in the larger context of life and community.

Thank you for the honor Mr. Mohammad Tohamy Hussein. Great and very valuable question.

Being a religious person, I have always valued and pursued a meaningful life at the expense of a happy life. A meaningful life for me guides my actions from the past through the present to the future, giving me a sense of direction. For me life has a purpose and value. The quest for a meaning is a key part of what makes us human.

Meaningfulness is associated with doing things for others. Engagements with others that sacrifice the self or that build relationships over time contribute to meaningfulness. Sharing generate lasting life satisfaction. Life satisfaction is the true goal after all.

Happiness is mainly about getting what one wants and needs, including from other people or even just by using money. How can you be only “happy” in this world when you see all the suffering around you?  In contrast, meaningfulness is doing things that express and reflect the SELF, and in particular doing positive things for others. Meaningful involvements increase one’s stress, worries, arguments and anxiety. Meaningful transcends the self while happiness is all about giving the self what it wants. 

The meaningful life must be happy life, but the key is the value, search values and then the life will be happy and meaningful.