Happiness is clearly fundamental in our lives.
But we seem to spend most of our efforts pursuing it and all too little time actually experiencing it. It seems we often indulge in activities which we think bring happiness but which, under scrutiny, we would have to concede are really only displacement activities, to avoid having to admit that the lack is still there and that we need to search in some more fruitful direction. Much of the problem with our perception of happiness lies in our relating it to our imagined happiness of others. Here we already have a reversal of the attitudes expressed above - it is not what I can get which will make me happy but what I can give. It is hardly compatible with the capitalist ethos.