This will be a bit rambly and disjointed, so please forgive me that. Just something I want to get down somewhere. Nothing that profound.

The pursuit of happiness is the biggest cause of unhappiness.

At least, it is when it is your goal. When you say, I need X, then I’ll be happy. X being anything. A car. Lots of money. Love.  Whatever. Because in the end, your expectations grow to exceed your means. Every time.

Happiness isn’t a long term state of being. It’s an extreme. Contentment is the long term state, and if you never sit back and think “I’ve got it pretty good”, then you’re dooming your self.

Of course, like all generalisations, I’m ignoring outliers. There are plenty of people out there in bad situations, who are right to strive to escape them. However, most middle class people aren’t in that group.

Me, I’m pretty good with my life. There are things I’d like to be different (not losing my hair, not going grey, weighing a bit less, and so on) but there’s not much important. There are things I’d have done differently in hindsight, but I realised last night, the
only times I’ve been unhappy in recent history (barring things like illness, and so on), are when I’ve dwelt on things that might have been. And that in dwelling on them, I was guilty of an immense ego trip. That I could predict what would have happened, if a condition had been different. You never know what’s going to happen. So make the most of now, and don’t think about what might have been.

So, an early new year’s resolution. No regrets.