In pursuit of happiness

As human beings, some very educated people claim that our highest attainable goal in life is to be happy.

You see it in the druggie who’s on a constant high so as to feel happy or the shopaholic who shops till they drop in pursuit of happiness or the business person whose happiness translates to money in the bank or chèque in hand. The student whose happiness is good grades and A’s in exam.. we can go on and on.

But what is happiness really ? According to my favorite definition, Happiness is a state of WELL-BEING AND CONTENTMENT.

It’s no surprise then that a person will posses all the material things in the world and still not be happy. We all know this but somehow, we still fail dismally at it.

There so many theories as to why this is so but one that everyone favors is the social characteristics of being human. As social beings, self satisfaction lies in meeting with the expectation of the group.  We are hard wired to be accepted and be part of the group. This is an evolutionary trait that has seen our species survive the worst times, but as individuals, it’s the source of all discontentment. 

I failed economics in high school but there’s one thing I picked up on that subject. Adam Smith, one of the founding fathers of modern economics studies boldly stated that “man is an animal that can never be satisfied.” He’s always looking out for new things, new goals, new ‘opportunities’, contentment is not a natural state for man who’s always worried about tomorrow, that he doesn’t know what it holds and yesterday that he will never be able to change. 

As we purse happiness(whatever it means to us) let us try to remember that outside of us, happiness is chameleon, changing colors in different situations. We need to root our happiness in ourselves and teach ourselves how to be content perhaps, the happiness we seek, will manifest.