by Elton Gahr

Created on: April 27, 2009

Is perpetual happiness possible? Is it something that is even desirable in this world? People have been asking this question for as long as people have existed and the answers have been as varied as the people who have asked the question. From the Buddha who said that the key to happiness is the elimination of desire, the old testament of the bible takes a more practical approach saying that "For everything there is a time. A time to laugh and a time to cry; A time to morn and a time to dance, and the new testament has an even more sobering approach to the idea of happiness "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world".

Moreover to be perpetually happy in this world would require a true callousness of the soul. No good man can be happy while he watches another suffer, and even the blindest man can not avoid seeing suffering in this world. We often turn our eyes from it because we can not watch it but if we care to know we understand that the world is a sick place. Children are dying across the world because no one cares enough to do the little things that would save them. Others are dying in wars, suicide bombings, and a hundreds other ways.

And so the question turns from how to be perpetually happy to how to be happy at all and the answer must be the same. True happiness comes not from turning into ourselves but to turn outward. To look out at a sick and dying world. Yet this alone can cause a near panic as we become aware of just how impossible it is to truly change anything and the feeling of despair can become overwhelming.

And so how do we achieve happiness? How can we find a solution better than simply drowning out the world in a haze of drugs and alcohol in an attempt to forget the rest of the world in an attempt to make ourselves happy with the full knowledge that this will fail as fully as anything else.

The only possible answer is to think big and to focus small. We can imagine changing the world but the way to be happy is to change a single life at a time. You will still have the seasons, and you will still have tribulations but even when you can't be happy if you know that you made a difference in a single life today then it will be a day when you can be contented and at peace and the good days will be far better than the best days before you began to serve others and as you begin to understand that then the desires of others will become more important while your own become less and you will edge ever closer to the dream of perpetual happiness.

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