THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Happiness is most likely to be attained when it is not the direct object of pursuit.In early youth we are accustomed to divide life broadly into work and play, regarding the first as duty or necessity and the second as pleasure.One of the great differences between childhood and manhood is that we come to like our work more than our play.It become to us,if not the chief pleasure, at least the chief interest of our lives, and even when it is not this,an essential condition of our happiness.Few lives produce so little happiness as those that are aimless and unoccupied.Apart from all considerations of right and wrong,one of the first conditions of a happy life is that it should be a full and busy one,directed to the attainment of aims outside ourselves.