FORWARD: This blog post was originally published in 2017 elsewhere than published here soon after.
Today I want to write about something that applies to almost everyone on Earth, and that is The Pursuit of Happiness.
People are known to find happiness in different ways - some people acquire possessions, other people focus on relationships, and still others like to focus on health. There are also those who experience happiness through the giving of themselves, or by helping those in need.
I am familiar with each one of these sources of happiness, and I have experienced sourcing happiness from all of them. But over time, as I aged and continued to pursue happiness, I realized that the pursuit of happiness can sometimes lead toward unneeded suffering.
I think the unneeded suffering that I am referring to, is caused when we create happiness in ways that simultaneously cause suffering (for others or ourselves), and I also think that over the long-run, this is what happens when people make happiness their ultimate objective - they create an equal, or even greater amount of suffering.
In order to ensure that our Happiness is not causing ourselves and/or others to suffer, I recommend making the prevention, reduction and long-term elimination of suffering our first priority, not happiness.
suffering makes the happiness we experience,
more enjoyable, healthier and sustainable.
UPDATE: In 2023 I met a Teacher of Early Buddhism (Theravada) who explained how conditional happiness is a form of discontentment. You can read and listen more to the conclusion here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFuun1phKgQnhNa1wwTsRwDloXs_phqRD&si=QxJ_fIYfibSXCEzF
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