What is happiness? Writer and stand-up comedian Joz Norris discusses how we can become happy.

Seriously, though, what is happiness? How can we find it? Are there a set of rules, or is everyone’s experience different? We all know when we’re happy. There have been endless songs and films written about it. There are even nations where the pursuit of happiness is woven into their cultural fabric. But it remains an elusive concept. Nobody can quite put their finger on what it is.

There are so many different opinions of personal fulfilment and well-being. But surely a thread of community can be found somewhere. So, in the vague hope that a simple answer is right in front of us, we turn to the arts. An obvious choice is Pharrell Williams’ neo-soul banger, Happy. Surely this will be the definitive work on the matter. Sadly, a closer analysis of the lyrics shows that Mr Williams is discussing performative expressions of happiness, rather than offering any clear explanation of how it was acquired.

Reaching out to a published neuroscientist reveals some fascinating facts about the physiology involved. Responses in the human brain greet rewarding, fulfilling, or pleasurable experiences with a range of chemicals, including Dopamine, Endorphins, and Oxytocin, which produce sensations from bonding to euphoria. All very interesting, but we’re still no closer. Perhaps those simple answers don’t exist. 

Ask a room of ten people what happiness means, and you’re likely to hear ten different answers. Sometimes ten different answers from the same person, depending on when you ask them. Society’s quest for happiness has spawned a sprawling ecosystem of self-help books, podcasts, Instagram gurus, and pseudoscientific research, all promising to deliver what remains stubbornly vague. As our world grows more complex, happiness seems at once more attainable and more mysterious.

Which brings us to the point where Joz Norris enters our orbit. The writer and stand-up comedian is touring a show on this subject, exploring an underwhelming reaction to achieving a life goal. In addition, he’s producing a sitcom pilot that similarly deals with how we chase joy. If someone can claim to be an expert on happiness, he might be our chap.

He confesses to previously subscribing to the common belief that life is always “about to start.” It’s an idea originally articulated by Jungian analyst and academic, Marie Louise von Franz. “It’s a feeling that life is a waiting room,” he explains. “You must get some project or some personal task out of the way, and then, then, your real life will begin.” 

During the prolonged days of lockdown, Norris found himself circling this idea, noticing how many people (himself included) peg happiness to some deferred future event. “I just need to ‘finish writing this show’, or ‘get this promotion’, or ‘wait until I can travel again’, then I’ll really be happy…” Perhaps this provisional life offers a psychic sequel to the Protestant work ethic – the concept that diligent work can present salvation. While it might be great for keeping capitalism afloat, the endless stringing along of joy, with nirvana perpetually just over the next hill, suggests true happiness is both the ultimate reward and likely unattainable for most.

If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that life seldom unfolds according to plan. The lesson Norris drew, and one that contemporary schools of philosophy and psychology support, is that we risk missing out on happiness entirely if we’re always preparing for it, rather than living it. “You think there’s going to be some huge transformation after you finish a big thing. But actually, life just… returns to what it was. And everyone… your friends, your peers, even your audience, moves on.”

Ancient wisdom is packed with warnings against postponing joy. The Stoics, experiencing their own turbulent world, urged a focus on the present. Seneca’s famed dictum: “True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future,” seems poignant. Mind you, Nero ordered him to kill himself, so let’s not pretend he got everything spot on.

Nobody wants complacency masquerading as wisdom. “There’s a risk in telling people to simply accept their lot. You don’t want to suggest that ambition, or striving for more, is pointless,” Norris adds. Indeed, ambition drives creativity, fuels innovation, and moves society forward. So, perhaps there’s a sweet spot in the pursuit of happiness, delicately balanced somewhere between being content with what is and reaching for what could be.

Attaining a milestone can be exhilarating, but that feeling rarely lasts. The runner’s high fades, applause dies down, and daily routine returns, waiting patiently to be filled with new meaning. Norris says he realised happiness is less connected to chasing after the next thing. “It’s more about changing your relationship to the everyday, and reframing ordinary moments to be worthwhile.”

He described the natural push-pull between satisfaction and desire as a uniquely human challenge: too little ambition, and we stagnate; too much, and we’re perpetually restless. The key, it seems, is to recognise contentment and drive not as enemies, but as co-conspirators in a meaningful life.

But then attitudes around happiness diverge sharply between cultures. In Western societies, particularly the United States and Britain, happiness is routinely cast as a solitary affair. It’s a product of the individual will, the ultimate DIY project. “The story we tell ourselves is that happiness is something you have to generate for yourself,” Norris suggests. “It’s so anchored in the idea of picking yourself up by your bootstraps.”

Contrast this with many Eastern cultures, where happiness is more of a social experience, enacted through ritual, shared projects, and public celebrations. In these societies, the line between self and other is blurred by stronger traditions and expectations. Things like religious festivals and neighbourhood gatherings create a deeply rooted sense of belonging. “There’s something profound in the way certain cultures see happiness as a collective experience, not just a private state to be cultivated behind closed doors.”

It’s not that one approach is ‘better,’ but each offers unique insights. The Western cult of the individual can foster creativity and self-determination, often accompanied by loneliness and alienation. Meanwhile, the communal approaches prevalent in parts of East Asia can sometimes stifle outliers, yet also deliver a sense of belonging and security many in the West yearn for.

Scandinavia serves as an interesting example. Regularly topping global happiness rankings, the northern European countries blend personal autonomy with community responsibility, producing societies where well-being is seen as a shared project. Norris recalled stories from a friend doing stand-up in Norway, where “trying too hard to stand out is quietly frowned upon, and the celebrated goal is to be part of the collective.” This, he noted, can be jarring for British or American visitors, but perhaps helps explain the region’s consistent contentment – despite all those legendarily long winter nights. 

Cost-of-living crisis aside, we live in an age of both unprecedented material abundance and unprecedented dissatisfaction. As societies have grown richer, levels of happiness and well-being have not always trended upward in step. Classic studies by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that, while money does improve life satisfaction, up to a point, it has abruptly diminishing returns after someone’s income crosses that threshold.

“In our culture,” Norris mused, “happiness often feels contingent on having the right job, house, partner, car. But we forget that we’re remarkably adaptable creatures. Often, the things we work hardest to obtain quickly fade into the background once we have them.”

So perhaps the secret to happiness is not about amassing objects or suffering nobly, but about weaving meaning and pleasure from what we have. “It’s about recalibrating your expectations,” Norris said, “acknowledging where you are, aiming for progress when it matters, but not letting comparison or external markers cloud your view of what’s worthwhile.”

In recent years, increases in loneliness, stress, and disillusionment have been exacerbated by the pandemic, but also seeded by wider economic and social shifts. “There’s not enough focus on making people’s lives better at a basic level… on creating opportunities, meaningful work, spaces to gather, or reasons to care about the community.” Is there an answer in neighbourhood initiatives, like sport or arts projects, to creating purpose, especially in underserved areas?

A good example of what constructive policy might look like is contained in the BBC show, Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams. This chronicles the England cricketer establishing a cricket league in a town beset by deprivation. The sudden arrival of a shared focus, Norris says, “gave people something to look forward to, invest in, be proud of. Not because they all loved cricket, but because it gave shape to their week, and built real hope.”

Perhaps a decline of traditional gathering places, like parish halls, social clubs, and even bustling high streets, has altered the landscape of happiness. Humanity’s hunger for belonging manifests in myriad ways. In the absence of strong local institutions, people carve out digital or super-specialised communities. Which is fine if you like a certain pop star or playing Dungeons & Dragons, but not so much if your clique starts forming an echo chamber which resists objective reality. 

Online groups can provide support and a shared identity, but carry the risk of further fragmenting society. Our culture needs to adapt, investing in spaces and projects that reweave the social fabric, encouraging ‘accidental’ encounters, and building subcultures that value engagement over consumption.

For creators, artists, and entrepreneurs, the search for happiness is often doubled. They must pursue both the pleasure of creation and the rewards of recognition. Norris, whose own show explored the collapse of expectation after finishing a years-long project, puts it starkly: “You think, ‘When I finish this thing, everything will change’. What you learn is that your life is always going to be your life. The project ends, the show opens, the reviews come in, and then it’s time for the next thing.”

He reflects on the risk of tying self-worth to achievement. This can be an especially harsh lesson in creative fields, where public judgments can be swift. And fickle. The antidote, he suggests, is both humility and joy in the work itself. “Making things that help people forget their troubles, or see themselves reflected, is a worthwhile object on its own. The value is in the experience, not necessarily in the outcome.”

Norris’s own comedy forms a dialogue around these themes. His recent show, You Wait. Time Passes, became an Edinburgh hit with its frothy depiction of a character dedicating his life to a spectacularly pointless quest – only to discover, too late, that the labour itself was all there ever was. As he gets ready to take the production on tour around the UK, he suggests the lesson might be that the journey, not any regulating transformation, is where meaning lies. Things generally become clichés for good reasons.

It’s no overstatement to claim we’re living through the golden age of the “happiness industry.” Never before have so many people been paid to advise, analyse, coach, treat, and write about how to be happy. From wellness apps to bestselling books, advice is everywhere.

Norris acknowledges the value of new research, but also its limitations. “A lot of these books and experts end up telling you what worked for them. It’s always a sample size of one. Happiness is personal… idiosyncratic. No book can give you a formula.”

He highlights how behavioural scientist Paul Dolan tried to mathematically optimise his own day-to-day happiness, adding and subtracting pleasures and frustrations like so many equations. Which was funnelled into the chart-topping self-help guide, Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life.  “For me, that approach just doesn’t fit. But, for others, it might.” The takeaway: breadth of advice is useful, but there’s no universal shortcut.

Worse, the endless pursuit of optimisation can even sow fresh dissatisfaction. If you are always tinkering with your life, chasing an arbitrary happiness score could erode the capacity to simply experience life. 

So, if happiness is a moving target, then perhaps laughter is its most reliable bullseye. “Comedy allows us to confront life’s absurdities, its disappointments and joys, without the burden of solutions,” Norris says. While everyone’s concept of humour is different, laughter forms an easily accessible communal ritual left to us. It’s a way to cut through the loneliness of life ruled by digital interactions; it’s something we can feel. It can even be a demonstration of how we’re all in this together.

In the end, what advice is worth giving? Can Norris distil his own philosophy, forged in years of performing, reading, failing, and starting again, to round off an article with big ambitions in search of an easy answer?

“Pay attention to what brings you enjoyment,” he obligingly offers. “It’s so easy to lose all your time to what you have to do – work, chores, obligations. But when you can, notice the things you enjoy, even if they seem daft or small. Try to make a little more space for them in your life. Because sometimes, those tiny bits ripple outwards. They might even end up making the rest enjoyable, too.”

Of course, he gently warns against any one trick claiming to deliver lasting joy. “What works for you won’t work for everyone. And sometimes, you have to be honest. Happiness is hard, maybe even impossible, sometimes. But, that’s ok.”

The goal then might be to develop a kind of “happiness literacy” which enables a better understanding of your own sources of joy, grief, and meaning. From this comes the ability to communicate your needs to others, to ask for help, to invest in community, or to forgive yourself when you fall short.

If there’s a unifying thread to our search for happiness, it’s that the answer is not in the grand gestures or the fleeting highs. It is in the ongoing, often ordinary, sometimes dogged, practice of noticing, appreciating, and connecting. Small pleasantries, routine rituals, acts of kindness, and moments of purpose form the fabric of a well-lived journey.

“Your entire life is a project,” Norris suggests. “There’s never going to be a moment when everything clicks and stays perfect. But you can find ways to enjoy the messy, uncertain, beautiful process.” 

The pursuit of happiness doesn’t have a finish line. Every adventure will let you down occasionally. But it’s the process of tuning in, reaching out and exploring what’s out there that creates magic. The main thing is that you do it on your own terms. 

Joz Norris brings You Wait. Time Passes to Brighton’s Komedia on Wed 4 March, Soho Theatre in central London on Wed 8 – Sat 11 April, and Canterbury’s Marlowe Theatre on Sat 20 June, as part of his 2026 UK tour.

www.joznorris.co.uk