One of the founding principles of the American idea was that everyone has a right to the pursuit of happiness. There has been much debate and conflict these past years about equality and fairness. Who has had more access to the pursuit of happiness and who has been denied that access? Who has had that right taken or stolen from them?
Maybe another way to tackle it is to examine that last inalienable right, the pursuit of happiness. We take those words at face value and have adopted them as our driving ambition and goal in life. But when you look at that phrase, the pursuit of happiness makes it sound like happiness is something to chase down, capture and trap. At best, it appears to be a prize to be won. But one of the principles of Buddhism states that craving and wanting is an endless cycle. Anything that you desire and actually achieve will not satisfy you, it will become the next desire, and the following desire after that. So it’s possible that a Buddhist interpretation of the pursuit of happiness tells us that the pursuit will never end and we can never actually capture that idea of happiness.
But happiness has been studied extensively and seems to be more grounded in the present and in the now. I’m not sure the exact quote, but it’s something like: “How you live now is how you live your life.”
So maybe all of us have access and opportunity for happiness, just not quite in the way that we have been told.
