The Pleasure Is In The Pursuit.
This month our attention got caught by a French polymath, Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, with his thoughts on happiness.
It comes as a timely reminder just as we struggle to keep our bills paid and occasionally find ourselves feeling the weight of the world on our shoulders, wishing that we'd already had it all figured out.
To think about it - through the pursuit of something meaningful, we derive the purpose in our life which in turn makes us feel truly alive, significant and satisfied with ourselves. This act is what makes us forget about the struggle or at least help us to tolerate the never-ending challenges of life.
Perhaps, Pierre-Augustin is right, and it is the pursuit that makes us happy. The pleasure then is in the constant movement forward.
“At last I have what I wanted. Am I happy? Not really. But what’s missing? My soul no longer has that piquant activity conferred by desire. . . . Oh, we shouldn’t delude ourselves — pleasure isn’t in the fulfillment, but in the pursuit.”
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Painting: “The Progress of Love: The Pursuit” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
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