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Comment by graemep | Hacker News Reader

It is entirely unsurprising that wealth and similar "success" does not lead to happiness. People have been writing about this for millennia. It has been a huge part of philosophical and religious thought. Is this really a surprise to anyone?

What is missing here is any consideration of what makes people happy. Maybe not chasing shallow materialistic ambitions? Not playing lie as a zero sum games?

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The author's point is very different -- it is that happiness can really only be pursued, as opposed to it being possible to obtain and retain happiness in an ever-lasting way -- but that it should be pursued nevertheless.

"huge part of philosophical and religious thought" is sweeping in the extreme.

Take for instance what a Christian would tell you about happiness -- they would hardly be saying the same thing as I mentioned above. Take a Buddhist or a Hindu -- they would probably agree with the first half of the proposition above (happiness cannot be procured permanently) but the entire thrust of those traditions has been (basically) to recognize this fact and give it all up and retire to the caves.

Even if happiness can only be pursued you can define being happy as happiness feeling close and inevitable. Like if you feel all you have to do is to get home to be happy then you achieve happiness every day, I'd call that being happy.

It is when you feel happiness requires a ton of work or big things to change that happiness is fall away and we start to despair.

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