Happiness on GQ

Excerpts from an article on GQ UK, June 2008:

"We live our lives under the godless heavens, we turn to man's final question: how to be happy?

To elbow our way to the peak of the working world or leave the rat race behind? To strive without ceasing for the nicer seat, the bigger house, the better job, the faster car, the prettier woman, all the gilded laurels of the big boys -- oh, would you be happy then?"

"We think we know what it takes, but soon learn that we know nothing. Happiness is more than the absence of pain. Happiness is more than a momen of transient bliss."

"We think that the recipe for instant happiness is to stuff it all in. All the women you can bed, all the drink you can hold down, all the fast, white powder you can shovel up your greedy little snout. But hedonism is merely the desperate flight from unhappiness."

"Success is a prerequisite of happiness but it doesn't get you there. It merely means you have collected your boarding card. The foundation of lasting happiness is built on many things, not least knowing when you have got it good."

"What links the high priests of happiness is their emphasis on balance, especially between opposed principles. The balance between longterm goals and immediate needs; the balance between self-interest and social benevolence; the balance between our potential and our limitations; the balance between family and work, love and sex, me time and them time, delayed gratification and the needs of right here, right now."

"Happiness is not a permanent state. You can't suddenly and unexpectedly arrive there, as though it was a destination just beyond the edge of the A-Z. Even with all the stalwarts in place -- the work going well, the weight kept off, the money coming in, the family happy, the sun shining -- happiness comes and goes, and the heartbreaker is that we so rarely appreciate it when we are up to our necks in it."