Finding Your Way to a Happy Life

Happiness is a serious business. Following the right path to happiness is key.

KEY POINTS

• Although everyone desires happiness, it remains elusive to many.
• The path one takes to become happy determines how well he or she succeeds.
• The goal is to achieve a "sticky happiness"—a happiness that has deep roots.

Although everyone wants a happy life, a good many people spend most of their time being unhappy. They're stuck in jobs they dislike, relationships they resent, holding grudges that weigh them down, and swept up on a life course they never expected.

They become unhappier with the passage of each year.

Perhaps you can sympathize. After all, nearly all of us have had times when life was headed in the wrong direction, and happiness was about as easy to find as an honest bio on Bumble.

When stuck in this rut, many people are confused about how to make things better.

The root cause of this confusion is often due to their embracing the idea that happiness is found by satisfying one’s most immediate desires.

More money, different sex partners, approval by others, greater personal freedom, a larger home, a nicer car… the list goes on. “If only I succeed at fulfilling these longings, then I’ll be happy.”

None of these desires lead to lasting happiness when they are pursued as ends in themselves.