The happiness debate

And once again, I wrote this about five million years ago but forgot to post it.

"I think...I think happiness is settling for whatever life gives you." <-- That's what I read.

Actually, I'd seen something like this before, on a toilet door either at mediation camp or the SPCA, but that one said, "Happiness isn't having everything you want, it's being happy with everything you have."

If this is happiness, that is, if happiness is being perfectly satisfied with your current situation, then it's possible for everyone to be happy. Right?

No.

Firstly, the more unfortunate you are, the harder it is to be happy with your situation. Of course, what people think is unfortunate is different, but generally you would agree for example that if a close friend of yours died you would find it much harder to be happy.

Anyway, the story then goes on to have one of the main character's best friends die and he says to her before he passes away (a few weeks before, not a deathbed thing) that he's not concerned about the big issues like world peace and global warming anymore. The thing that he's most concerned about is that everyone is throwing away their happiness. People have all these opportunities, and they refuse to take them, out of fear or whatever.

"Accept what people give. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love."

He was telling her this because she was in love with this guy who wanted to marry her, but she had gotten divorced before (as well as a ton of other bad stuff) and was too afraid that it wouldn't work out.

But anyway. If we can become happier just by taking more opportunities that come our way, then while we may not be able to achieve the perfect happiness, we can be happier without even destroying other peoples' vision of happiness. ("For the love of giving, grab!" can sound almost profound from this point of view eh XD)

Of course, this isn't really enough for anyone. After all, it sounds remarkably like just watching fate do your work for you and being happy with the results. Otherwise known as being complacent. Unattainable is appealing~ And also, if everyone just settled for what they had, there would be very little ambition, so the economy would fail etc.

If we have a mixture of the two, people who settle for what they get and people trying to create their vision of happiness, the people settling for what they get will get trampled into the carpet.

So, is there another way of achieving happiness?