We chase after it, when it is waiting all about us.
“Are you happy?” I asked my brother, Lan, one day. “Yes. No. It depends what you mean,” he said.
“Then tell me,” I said, “when was the last time you think you were happy?”
“April 1967,” he said.
It served me right for putting a serious question to someone who has joked his way through life. But Lan’s answer reminded me that when we think about .... happiness, we usually think of something extraordinary, a pinnacle of sheer delight---and those pinnacles seem to get rarer the older we get.
For a child, happiness has a magical quality. I remember making hide-outs in newly cut hay, playing cops and robbers in the woods, getting a speaking part in the school play. Of course, kids also experience lows, but their delight at such peaks of pleasure as winning a race or getting a new bike is unreserved.
In the teenage years ....
the concept of happiness changes. Suddenly it’s conditional on such things as excitement, love, popularity and whether that zit will clear up before prom night. I can still feel the agony of not being invited to a party that almost everyone else was going to. But I also recall the ecstasy of being plucked from obscurity at another event to dance with a John Travolta look-alike.
In adulthood the things that bring profound joy---birth, love, marriage---also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. Love may not last, * isn’t always good, loved ones die. For adults ....
, happiness is complicated.
My dictionary defines happy as “lucky” or “fortunate”, but I think a better definition of happiness is “the capacity for enjoyment”. The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It’s easy to overlook the pleasure we get from loving and being loved, the company of friends, the freedom to live where we please, even good health.
I added up my little moment of pleasure yesterday. First there was sheer bliss when I shut the last lunchbox and had the house to myself. Then I spent an uninterrupted morning writing, which I love. When the kids came home, I enjoyed their noise after the quiet of the day.我们追逐幸福，而幸福其实就在我们身边，只等着你去争取。
一天，我问哥哥朗：“你幸福吗?”他回答说：“可以说幸福，也可以说不幸福，这要看你指哪方面了。”
“那你告诉我，”我说，“最近一次你感到幸福是什么时候?”
“1967年4月，”他答道。
对一个玩世不恭的人提出一个这么严肃的问题，这个答案是我自找的。但朗的回答却给了我一个启示：当我们思索幸福时，我们通常想到的是一些非同寻常的事，纯粹的快乐极致——但是随着我们年纪越来越大，那些极端的快乐好像越来越少了。
对一个孩子来说，幸福有一种不可思议的特征。我记得曾在新割的干草丛中玩捉迷藏；在树林里玩“警察与小偷”游戏；在学校的戏剧表演里扮演有台词的角色。当然，孩子也有情绪低落的时候；但是，在赢得一场比赛时，或获得一辆新脚踏车时，他们会毫无保留地释放这种极致的快乐。
在青少年时期，对幸福的概念在变化。突然间，幸福取决于激动、爱、声望甚至是脸上的青春痘能否在毕业舞会前消失等等这样的事物。我仍然清楚地记得我未被邀请参加一个聚会的痛苦——几乎所有人其它人都被邀请了。但是，我还记得，在另—次活动中，我被挑中与—个貌似约翰·特拉沃尔塔的人共舞时的兴奋。
成年后，带来极度喜悦的事物是——分娩、爱情和婚姻——也带来责任和损失的风险。爱可能不会长久，性爱也不总是如意，心爱的人可能会死去。对于成人来说，幸福是复杂的。
在我的字典里，对幸福的定义是“幸运”或“好运”，但我认为对幸福更佳的定义是“享受快乐的能力”。如果我们能够更投入地享受所拥有的一切，我们就更加幸福。但是，爱与被爱、友人相伴、高兴住在哪里就住在哪里的自由、甚至身体的安康，我们从以上事物中获得的快乐却很容易被我们忽视。