We had a recent lesson by Bonnie Pace on what is happiness, and how to find it. My brother shared something with me that is exactly what Bonnie was talking about!
"I have a friend that lives in Maine, who is suffering from advanced MS. His prognosis is terminal, although he continues to try experimental treatments and medications. He keeps a blog site called "Enjoying the Ride", which is updated every week or two. I found his posting from last week interesting:
"On this Independence Day holiday, I am repeating a post on what to me is one of the most intriguing phrases in the US Declaration of Independence. It is contained in the famous sentence:
" 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'
"I have always found the inclusion of “the pursuit of happiness” as an inalienable right to be appealing. One does not expect to see such a quaint sentiment in a revolutionary political document, and its presence sheds an interesting and positive light on the minds and aspirations of the people who drafted it.
But while happiness is a laudable goal, the suggestion that we should actively pursue it may be misguided. Happiness is not something to be sought after. People who pursue happiness as a goal are unlikely to find it. Happiness is what happens when you are pursuing other worthwhile goals. The philosopher Robert Ingersoll also valued happiness but had a better sense about what it would take to achieve it, saying “The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.”
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