The Pursuit of Happiness?

Every time I hear someone make a comment along the lines of the title of this post, I remember a line I once heard: "Happiness is not a constant state of mind, but rather little pockets of emotion throughout your life".

If all those people pursuing happiness were to actually exist in a constant state of happiness, it would de facto negate the emotion, since there would be nothing to offset the happiness. How can you tell that you are happy, if you never experience anything else? To truly feel happy, you have to have felt sad, angry, frustrated, annoyed, and generally upset.

Spending life pursuing happiness to the exclusion of everything else is an exercise in futility. The true moments of happiness never have a chance to register because they are fleeting, and that is not what happiness is supposed to be, right?

Instead, try to appreciate the happy moments no matter how fleeting, because they go by so quickly and when they are gone, all we have left are the memories.