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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Happiness Is the Pursuit

A Little HappinessImage via Wikipedia

The setup for a classic joke is, "What do women want?". To which one of many punchlines is "More!" But what all people of either gender (except for the psychopaths among us) really want is happiness. There are many reasons, however, why happiness eludes so many people, not the least of which is an unwillingness and/or the inability to learn what would make the individual happy.

There are many well known contenders for yielding happiness, such as love, sex, money, power, pizza, and a myriad of stuff your neighbor wishes he had. But there is no panacea for happiness, no single objective that floats everyone's boat, as it were. Unless ...

Well, unless happiness is a state of mind that emerges, not from the attainment of an objective, but from its pursuit! Just think of the many ways one experiences unhappiness: "buyer's remorse"; "Is that all there is?"; "It's not all it's cracked-up to be"; ennui; "I'd rather be fishing"; "Jello, again?". On the other hand, the thrill of the pursuit, the anticipation of success, the suspense, the mystery, the action are all awash in endorphins. "It's the pursuit, stupid", to coin a phrase.

Bitching, moaning, and occupying is for the lazy and the ignorant. Happiness is not easy; if it was it would be much more common than we observe it to be. It has to be earned the old fashioned way — via thoughtful, vigorous, active pursuit.

Post 1,732 Happiness Is the Pursuit

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