Something is wrong if we aren’t happy, we need to ‘fix’ ourselves, get back to the ‘correct’ path. Worse, to be unhappy, we are told, is to be broken.
The central lie of Western life is that success leads to happiness. Ironically, not making ‘happiness’ the goal has led me to be happier than I’ve ever been. I used to think along these lines, but it ended up making me deeply unsatisfied with life. Maybe if I get this house, be with that person, get this promotion, or go to that school, I will finally be happy.
“Ask yourself if you are happy,” John Stuart Mill said, “and you cease to be so.” For others, it is a north star - the guiding principle of every decision we make in life.įor the majority of us, though, it seems to be the elusive feeling that’s always just over the hill. Not because it eludes me, but because it is so many different things to so many people.įor some, happiness is a state that we never speak of but naturally yearn for.
The hardest thing for me to write about is happiness.
