The Pursuit of Happiness

There are some fine distinctions to be found in the now immortal phrase, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Life is an eternal fact; liberty, and inalienable right. But with happiness we are offered only the right to pursue it! We can give a man his liberty. He may not use it well or keep it long, but we can give it to him. But not so his happiness. We can help, but ultimately he has to help himself to happiness. But this all men have in common: we are all looking for it. No one wants to be unhappy; no one deliberately sets out to try to make a muddle of his life. But some of us may be so hotly in pursuit of some counterfeit kind that the real thing isn’t recognized. Some of us may be looking for the right thing in the wrong way. Among the many misconceptions concerning this thing so much pursued are these: (One) That money makes happiness. False. It may help or it may hinder. Some men have sold their happiness, but no one was ever able to buy it. (Two) That pleasure is the same as happiness. False. You can wear yourself ragged in pursuit of pleasure and still wake up in dull despair. (Three) That fame brings happiness. False. The record eloquently indicates otherwise. (Four) That happiness must be found in far places. False again. We carry it with us or we don’t have it. And sometimes after we have pursued it in far places we find that we have left our happiness behind. There is a long list of things that have helped to make men happy, from which we mention these: A quiet conscience; useful work well and willingly done; an awareness of being needed and wanted; an earnest appreciation of other people; conformity to the laws of honor and of honesty, to the laws of the land and the laws of God. If there were no reasonable chance of finding happiness, we had just as well ring down the curtain on time and eternity, for happiness is properly the chief business and ultimate aim of life. “Men are, that they might have joy.”127 But there is no point in pursuing it where it never was and never will be found. No one ever overtook anything including happiness by pursuing it on the wrong road. If we want it, we had better look for it where it is.