Happiness is a moving target. It is fickle and fleeting, often seeming out of reach - but most often within our grasp, if we come to understand what true happiness means to each of us.

Happiness is a moving target. This is not the first time I have posted an inference of that kind, and it probably won't be the last. But today I felt the need of stressing this insight once again: happiness may be the single phenomenon in our existence that we keep on chasing without ever being able to hold it for very long, because it changes its contents like a chameleon changes its colors.

It is not only the fact that the contents of happiness change for us, though, that make this experience a fickle one: it is also the fact that life just seem to require that we experience, at all time, at least a certain percentage of unhappiness in one area or another.

Let's briefly elaborate on both reasons for happiness' erratic nature:

The first part may be easiest to comprehend: we have a desire, we go for it, and once it's fulfilled, we feel another desire emerging. Not that we really want that, but it may just be due to the construction of human nature. We live in a society where needs are continuously created, whether physiological, intellectual, or psychological. The ones among us who allow themselves to be exposed to the media very often, or who interact with others on a daily basis - in the workplace, for instance - will be more prone to this need creation that those who have a more solitarian lifestyle. But the desires will be there anyway, at least to some extent. It takes immense internal growth, entailing the realization that nothing lasts, and that, therefore, nothing is worth chasing, before we can get to the point rid of most of our desires.

But, again, reaching one goal mostly only means: the emergence of another one. And then happiness is on the move again until we have achieved that goal, after which we will experience a brief moment of elation, and then face yet another goal to fulfill our newly surfaced definition of happiness.

Now, the second reason why happiness may always seem out of reach is, because we can all think of at least one area in our lives where things are not going so well: All the time. If it's not related to our job, then to our health, our children, our love life, our financial state, or something else. It seems to be an established fact that life is just not possible without having something to be concerned about.

And this, too, can only be mastered after significant, enduring internal growth, in which we learn to detach ourselves from
everything and everybody; at least to the extent where those things and people would have the capacity to influence our contentment.

But, being the people we are, and living in the society we know, achieving total happiness will probably always remain an adventure, and maybe that is a good thing, for it gives us a purpose for progressing, isn't it?

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About the Author:
Joan Marques emigrated from Suriname, South America, to California, U.S., in 1998. She holds a doctorate in Organizational Leadership, a Master's in Business Administration, and is currently a university instructor in Business and Management in Burbank, California. You may visit her web sites at http://www.joanmarques.com and http://www.spiritcounts.com