There is a peculiar habit we human beings have of placing happiness just beyond our reach.
It is always waiting for us somewhere in the future, usually on the other side of something we have not yet managed to acquire.
When we have more money, we shall be happy. When we lose the weight, find the right person, purchase the beautiful house, or finally arrange our lives to our satisfaction, then, surely, happiness will come.
And sometimes it does.
For a little while.
There is genuine pleasure in achieving something we have worked hard for. There is delight in a beautiful home, satisfaction in a job well done, and a particular sort of happiness in discovering that an old dress fits once again.
These things are not imaginary. Nor are they wrong to enjoy.
The trouble begins when we expect them to do more than they were ever intended to do.
For no sooner have we acquired the thing we were certain would make us happy than we discover another thing wanting.
The beautiful house requires repairs. The wonderful relationship encounters difficulties. The money that once seemed more than sufficient becomes insufficient for our growing desires. And the figure we worked so diligently to achieve does not, after all, prevent us from having a dreadful Tuesday.
So we begin again.
Another ambition. Another improvement. Another promise to ourselves that when this next thing is accomplished, we shall finally be content.
It is rather like pursuing the horizon. No matter how far we travel, it remains just beyond us.
I have been thinking lately about how much of life we spend doing precisely this.
We are encouraged to pursue happiness as though it were a destination we might eventually reach through sufficient determination. We are told to improve ourselves, follow our dreams, seek fulfillment, and build the lives we have always imagined.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these things. Indeed, much good may come from them.
But somewhere along the way, we have confused the enjoyment of life with the expectation that life ought to make us permanently happy.
And life, being life, has never made such a promise.
Even the happiest marriage knows disappointment. Even the healthiest body grows tired. Even the most comfortable circumstances cannot protect us from grief, uncertainty, or the ordinary troubles of being human.
We may improve our circumstances enormously without ever managing to remove the difficulties of living.
I have come to believe that this is because we are searching for something this world was never intended to provide.
As a Christian, I believe that perfect and lasting happiness belongs to heaven, where the brokenness of this life will finally be made whole. Here on earth, we are permitted glimpses of joy, sometimes extraordinarily beautiful ones, but we are not promised an existence free from sorrow.
And perhaps understanding that changes the way we ought to live.
We need not stop pursuing worthwhile things. We may work toward better health, cultivate loving relationships, make our homes beautiful, and take pleasure in our accomplishments.
We may celebrate them wholeheartedly.
But we need not burden them with the impossible responsibility of making us completely happy.
A lovely afternoon is allowed to be a lovely afternoon. A successful endeavor may be enjoyed for what it is. A quiet cup of coffee in a peaceful house need not become the beginning of some grand transformation.
It is enough that, for a few moments, life is good.
Perhaps contentment begins when we stop insisting that happiness must be permanent before it is worth appreciating.
When we learn to receive the good things of this world as gifts rather than guarantees.
When we recognize that a difficult day does not mean we have somehow failed to arrange our lives properly.
And when we cease expecting the next achievement, possession, or relationship to deliver us from every unhappiness that came before it.
There is freedom in this realization.
We may still have ambitions. We may still improve ourselves. We may still hope for lovely things.
But we can stop chasing the impossible.
For the happiness of heaven is not something we can manufacture here on earth, however carefully we arrange our circumstances.
And in the meantime, there is a great deal of beauty to be found in simply living the life before us, enjoying its blessings, enduring its difficulties, and remembering that this world was never meant to be our final home.