In the pursuit of happiness

In 2006 a movie was released starring Will Smith, called ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’.

It’s based on a true story about a man named Christopher Gardner; a down-on-his-luck salesman, who (while living rough on the streets with his son) struggles to make ends meet and at the same time takes on an unpaid internship as a stockbroker.

Eleven years later, I remember the film for two specific reasons.

The first: at one point in the movie the main character solves a Rubik’s Cube, which inspired me to buy my own Rubik’s cube and spend weeks watching YouTube clips on how to solve it.

I subsequently had my own ‘Pursuit of Happyness Rubik’s Cube Moment’ a few years later when I spotted one in my boss’s office and casually solved it during a staff meeting – to everyone’s astonishment.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that was quite possibly the highlight of my life up to that point...

And secondly; it really bothered me, and still does, that ‘happyness’ was spelt with a ‘y’ and not an ‘i’ – and I wish I could let that go, but I can’t.

But whether it be with a y or an i –although one’s wrong and the other isn’t – happiness is something that everyone wants, isn’t it?

Everyone pursues it. Everyone wants to be happy. The irony is though, that the more we pursue happiness, the less likely we are to find it.

In her book ‘‘The Power of Meaning.’’ author Emily Smith cites a 2013 study done by psychologists in the U.S which found that the pursuit of happiness actually results in a lack of fulfillment.

Why? Because it encourages me to focus on me, and people who live life trying to make themselves as happy as possible actually end up more and more unhappy.

At the other end of the spectrum, pursuing a life of meaning brings satisfaction,