Happiness is elusive and perhaps not the be-all and end-all

 

“Many of us have a tacit understanding that being happy is the most important thing in life: ‘I don’t care what they do just as long as they’re happy.’ But it also suggests that happiness is elusive and perhaps not the be-all and end-all: the parents who say they only want their children to be happy are usually disturbed if this happiness seems to be found by working as a stripper, drug dealer or loan shark. So happiness is important but it’s not everything; it’s worth having but hard to possess. No wonder that the pursuit of happiness seems to be so difficult and its role in the meaning of life so unclear.”