The Pursuit of Happiness I have been thinking about the pursuit of happiness inspired by Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler in his compiled essays “Strive for Truth”. We live in a society where we are sold happiness, experiences, possessions can all be bought and are meant to bring us happiness. Is this a Jewish happiness? Does this bring us true happiness as meant by H’shem? Or even a non-religious but sustained feeling of happiness? To start ones journey in the search of something with the outlook that it will never be found is flawed. To pursue is never to find, as pursuit is to follow, inferring that happiness is a moving target, but perhaps it is stationary but we have the wrong target therefore when we feel we might be getting closer to it we find we are in fact as far away from it as we were in the beginning. This is somewhat of an unconventional source of text,. Matisyahu and his music / lyrics have been very influential and inspirational to me. One lyric that I think portrays the pursuit of happiness is as follows: “they lost the way, they never had the right map” To give oneself a chance of happiness you have to have the right map, the right targets and aspirations, a physical happiness is transient and always bettered. To attain true happiness that doesn’t wear off and isn’t bettered by anything we need to make sure we have the right map and are heading to the correct place.
Previous Article
By The Light of The Moon
Next Article
