The pursuit of happiness! It is not strange that
men call it an
illusion. But I am well satisfied that it is not the thing itself, but
the pursuit, that is an illusion. Instead of thinking of the pursuit,
why not fix our thoughts upon the moments, the hours, perhaps the days,
of this divine peace, this merriment of body and mind, that can be
repeated and perhaps indefinitely extended by the simplest of all means,
namely, a disposition to make the best of whatever comes to us? Perhaps
the Latin poet was right in saying that no
man can count himself happy
while in this life, that is, in a continuous state of happiness; but as
there is for the soul no time save the conscious moment called "now," it
is quite possible to make that "now" a
happy state of existence. The
point I make is that we should not habitually postpone that season of
happiness to the future.
No one, I trust, wishes to cloud the dreams of youth, or to dispel by
excess of light what are called the illusions of hope. But why should
the boy be nurtured in the current notion that he is to be really happy
only when he has finished school, when he has got a business or
profession by which money can be made, when he has come to manhood? The
girl also dreams that for her happiness lies ahead, in that springtime
when she is crossing the line of womanhood,--all the poets make much of
this,--when she is married and learns the supreme lesson how to rule by
obeying. It is only when the girl and the boy look back upon the years
of adolescence that they realize how happy they might have been then if
they had only known they were happy, and did not need to go in pursuit of
happiness.
The pitiful part of this
inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness
is, however, that most men interpret it to mean the pursuit of wealth,
and strive for that always, postponing being happy until they get a
fortune, and if they are lucky in that, find at the end that the
happiness has somehow eluded them, that; in short, they have not
cultivated that in themselves that alone can bring happiness. More than
that, they have lost the power of the
enjoyment of the essential
pleasures of life. I think that the woman in the Scriptures who out of
her poverty put her mite into the contribution-box got more happiness out
of that driblet of generosity and self-sacrifice than some men in our day
have experienced in founding a university.
And how fares it with the
intellectual man? To be a selfish miner of
learning, for self-gratification only, is no nobler in reality than to be
a miser of money. And even when the scholar is lavish of his knowledge
in helping an ignorant world, he may find that if he has made his studies
as a pursuit of happiness he has missed his object. Much knowledge
increases the possibility of enjoyment, but also the possibility of
sorrow. If intellectual pursuits contribute to an enlightened and
altogether admirable character, then indeed has the student found the
inner springs of happiness. Otherwise one cannot say that the wise man
is happier than the ignorant man.
In fine, and in spite of the political injunction, we need to consider
that happiness is an inner condition, not to be raced after. And what an
advance in our situation it would be if we could get it into our heads
here in this land of inalienable rights that the world would turn round
just the same if we stood still and waited for the daily coming of our
Lord!
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