Our Search for Happiness

But pleasures are like poppies spread:

You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;

Or like the snow falls in the river,

A moment white—then melts for ever;

Or like the borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;

Or like the rainbow’s lovely form

Evanishing amid the storm.

(“Tam o’ Shanter,” in The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Burns [1897], 91, lines 59–66)

Pleasure never was happiness. 

The problem is that too many of us try to consume happiness rather than generate it. Shakespeare expressed a philosophy inAs You Like It that seems commendable:

 “I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness; glad of other men’s good” (act 3, scene 2, lines 65–67).

Another poet said:

Success is speaking words of praise,

In cheering other people’s ways,

In doing just the best you can

With every task and every plan.

It’s silence when your speech would hurt,

Politeness when your neighbor’s curt.

It’s deafness when the scandal flows

And sympathy with others’ woes.

It’s loyalty when duty calls.

It’s courage when disaster falls.

It’s patience when the hours are long.

It’s found in laughter and in song.

It’s in the silent time of prayer,

In happiness and in despair.

In all of life and nothing less,

We find the thing we call success.

Through every trial you should be proud God had the confidence that you could do this. Happiness does not stem from the solution to a problem, but from the personal development we go through. Hardships breeds perspective. Opposition breeds esteem. Instead of saying "Why me?" Say "Thank you" instead.