SOME THOUGHTS ON HAPPINESS

 

                    SOME THOUGHTS ON HAPPINESS

Happiness is joy, joyfulness, delight, gladness, bliss, euphoria, etc. According to English divine JohnsonTillotson ( 1630-94 ) , man courts happiness in a thousand shapes; and the faster he follows it the swifter it flies from him. Almost everything promiseth happiness to us at a distance, but when we come nearer, either we fall short of it, or it falls short of expectation; and it is hard to say which of these is the greatest disappointment. Our hopes are usually bigger than the enjoyment can satisfy; and an evil long feared, besides that it may never come, is many times more painful and troublesome than the evil itself when it comes.

English clergy Caleb C Colton (1780-1832) distinguishes between happiness and wisdom and says he that thinks himself the happiest man , really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

And finally as the English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) says happiness is an occasional episode in the general drama of pain.    

                                                                        *******

G.R.Kanwal

6^th March 2024