Defining Happiness
If I told you that I could provide you with everything you’ve ever wanted, how do you think your life would be once I delivered on that promise? Down to the smallest detail, what you seek and covet would be yours, no matter how valuable or rare or even humanly possible…you’d have it all. Initially you’d probably be in heaven…enjoying and soaking up all the riches and beauty and comfort that one can hope and wish for. After a while, however, I’d put my money on you growing bored with what you have. Regardless of how out-of-reach the things you’d been granted may have seemed before you acquired them, regardless of how complete you thought you’d be with everything you could ever desire, you’d grow bored.
Trivial Pursuits
About 12 years ago I lived in a massive apartment with my then-partner and our best friend. We three were always hanging out together, and we had decided that we might as well split rent three ways instead of rotating where we would hang out day after day…so we got this great place and each assumed our share of the (then-massive) rent. About a year after we moved, I walked into our living room (as one does) and noticed a pile of real estate listings with houses for sale, so I went to go speak to my friend to ask if he had any plans to move out in order to buy a house. He totally shrugged it off, saying he was just checking to see what was out there in the market but he wasn’t really looking. Cut to a few weeks later when he came home and proudly exclaimed that he had bought a house! So, trying to roll with the punches, I congratulated him and then asked him to give us his moving date as soon as he knew it because a) our rent was exorbitant and we needed to absorb his third of it, and b) our stove and fridge were his, and so I’d have to go buy new ones to replace his when he took them with him. Cut to a month later when I came home and saw the fridge being wheeled out the front door. Needless to say, our friendship pretty much ended there.