Dinesh's photos with the keyword: Happiness Treadmill

The pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right, says the Declaration of Independence in its list of self-evident truths. The greatest happiness of the greatest number wrote Jeremy Bentham, is the foundation of morality. To say that everyone wants to be happy sounds trite, almost circular, but it raises a profound question about our makeup. What is this thing that people strive for? At first happiness might seem like just desserts for biological fitness (more accurately, the states that would have led to fitness in the environment in which we evolved). We are happier when we are healthy, well-fed, comfortable, safe, prosperous, knowledgeable, respected, non-celibate, and loved. Compared to their opposites, these objects of striving are conducive to reproduction. The function of happiness would be to mobilize the mind to seek the keys to Darwinian fitness. When we are unhappy, we work for the things that make us happy, when we are happy, we keep the status quo. ............. How do we know what can reasonably be attained? A good source of information is that other people have attained. If they can get it, perhaps so can you. Through the ages, observers of the human condition have pointed out the tragedy; People are happy when they feel better off than their neighbors, unhappy when they feel worse off. But, O! how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes! - William Shakespeare (As You Like it,) Happiness, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of others. Ambrose Bierce It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. - Gore Vidal When does A hunchback rejoice? When he sees one with a larger hump _ Yiddish saying