Pursuit of Happ(y)ness

So I finally watched The Pursuit of Happyness (a movie about Chris Gardner’s struggles in trying to survive in this world) last night and it made me think how blessed I am to have a good home, a family, and all my basic needs fulfilled. I used to want all these (somewhat useless?) things in life, taking for granted what I already have.

Human beings are just plain insatiable. When we finally have what we think would make us happy, we look for something else that would make us even happier. We struggle everyday, taking two or three jobs at a time so we could buy the things we need and the things we want just to “survive”. Our quest for ultimate happiness is endless. There are days when we know what we need, what we want, while there are days when we are just lost, confused, and somewhat clueless to what we are after. We dream big dreams only to wake up in a reality so different from what we always want it to be.

The pursuit of our own happiness is just like going in circles. We begin by making our dreams, then we fight to achieve it, when we finally reach the top, we realize it’s just not what we want(need) or it’s not enough, it doesn’t make us happy. So we search again. We will never find true happiness if we cannot see what we already have right now. It’s what we do not have that makes us unhappy.

Let me share these quotes about happiness:

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” –Albert Schweitzer

“Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- because we will always want to have something else or something more.” – Brother David Steindl-Rast

“The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy.” - Dalai Lama

“Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.” - Helen Keller