The Pursuit of Happiness

Time Magazine this month features a thoughtful and wide-ranging cover story on happiness in America—how we pursue it and how we find it. A couple of points stand out:

• Money doesn't matter as much as we think, though being out of debt and being at the level we feel we belong are important. 

• Obsessing about what we don't have makes us unhappy. 

• Relationships, and especially marriage, difficult though they may be, rank at the top of what brings happiness.

• Material possessions deliver happiness only to the extent they contribute to rich, shared experiences.

It all seems to come down to this: don't expect a quick and easy path to happiness. You need to slog the long route through life and it takes patience, effort and persistence. Everyone always says this, of course, but it's taken a lifetime for me to appreciate the truth of it.

In the article's listing of what makes us happy or unhappy, though, not one word about alcohol or drug use is to be found. Perhaps the authors just don't know how it fits in or think it's irrelevant. A lot of people, it seems, are at least confused about the role it plays in our lives.

You know by now what I think. Alcohol is the quick and easy path to loneliness and depression. It harms or destroys what could make us happy—carefully nurtured relationships and the full enjoyment of life.