Last summer I read a book called Stumbling On Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. If you’d asked me right after I put the book down, I could have quoted you all sorts of passages, but now the few things that remain with me are:

1. To maximize your happiness, order what you want at a restaurant. Don’t get something different from the person you’re with if you both want the same thing.

2. If the intervals between the times you have something (say Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch ice cream) are not too short, you will always maximize your happiness by getting your favorite thing rather than a variety of things. Only when the intervals are close will you get sick of your favorite thing and get more happiness out of an alternate thing.

3. People who are disabled are just as happy as people who are not, and yet people who are not think they would be miserable if they were disabled. In other words, what you think will make you happy is not always the case. In fact, it is rarely the case.

And that brings me to my epiphany about happiness. Okay, well it’s not a full-fledged epiphany so much as a vague outline of an epiphany, but here it is: Most people do not truly WANT to be happy. Wait. Doesn’t that contradict what I said above, that everyone wants to be happy? Well, I think that everyone THINKS that they want to be happy, but that they really don’t. I think people would rather fit into society than be happy because to truly be happy, you’d have to stop participating in society. And here is what I mean by that:

We’ve all read enough books/magazine articles/poems/zen koans to know that the key to happiness is living in the here and now and appreciating what we have instead of looking toward the future and striving to have more, right? Ways to do that could include:

1. Thinking daily about all that we have rather than focusing on what we don’t have (some people may do this through a gratitude journal or a meditation.)

2. Doing the things that make us happy—reading the books on our shelves, wearing the clothes in our closet, going for walks, gardening, watching a sunset, playing with a pet or a child, all the things we can do now, for free, that make us happy.

But most of us would rather work toward being more than we are and having more than we have than doing the things that make us happy. Rather than settling for the apartment we live in, we want to buy a house. Rather than being content with that house, we want to fix it up or buy a bigger house. We want to make more money next year than last year. We want to buy nicer things, take fancier vacations, invest more money. When/where does it end? It doesn’t. Why? Because if we were content with what we had, if we didn’t strive to earn more/achieve more/own more, we wouldn’t fit into society. We’d be considered unambitious, perhaps lazy, maybe even dumb. I think of the heroes on all my favorite TV shows: The Sopranos, Mad Men, Big Love. They’re all smart, ambitious, and striving to get ahead. One could even argue that our economy would fall apart if people stopped wanting and buying new things. If everyone were happy with what they had, what would make the world go around? And not only that, but what purpose would we have in life? Striving to get things gives us something to do; it keeps us busy. Without that we’d be left to live like our primitive progenitors: feeding and raising families would be our main purpose for existence.

When I think about writing, I wonder how many of us are content to write regardless of whether we ever get published. Most of us want to get published—badly—even though we know we won’t make much money and that it’s very unlikely to allow us to quit our day jobs. My question is why? Do we write because it truly makes us happy? Are we TRULY happier agonizing over dialogue and character and story arc than we would be out watching a sunset or reading a book? I can’t say I am. I do love to write, but if I were going strictly for happiness, I may bail on my book at this point. I have it in my head that getting my book published will garner enough happiness to make up for the unhappiness I’ve endured through countless revisions. But will it? Really? Happiness tends to be short-lived while unhappiness endures. I find that when I achieve a goal—like run a half marathon—I feel good about it for a few days and then I move on to think about the next thing I want to achieve. I don’t relish in it for weeks the way I do after a great vacation. So why are we working so hard and not taking more vacations? I suppose it’s mostly about self-worth—about feeling like we’ve accomplished something and made something of ourselves rather than focusing on what makes us happy. Why is self-worth more important to us than happiness? Is it something inherent—or egos? Or is it societal pressure to not be considered a slacker? Because if it’s inherent, maybe there’s no way around it. But if it’s societal, then removing ourselves from that part of society (Do not read beauty magazines; they will only make you feel ugly) and instead surrounding ouselves by like-minded individuals whose goal is happiness would be the solution. Either way I’m convinced that if we’re not happy—truly happy—it’s because happiness isn’t truly our priority, as much as we think it is.

What do you think? To repeat the SAT question: Do you think people are capable of finding happiness or are they always searching for something beyond what they have?