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Here's the part where I say something hackneyed and trite like, Dictionary.com defines happiness as... Well, Dictionary.com defines happiness as:

1. the quality or state of being happy.
2. good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.

Lame.

So, happiness is being happy. Fine - definition #1 is completely useless to me. Definition #2 may be of some use, though. Good fortune - so something like winning the lottery can make you happy? I guess so, momentarily. It seems like I've heard one too many stories of how winning the lottery ruins lives, though. So, while I'm sure the winner is ecstatic at first, the lifestyle change that a sudden influx of several million dollars facilitates is often too much for a person to handle comfortably. That's not the kind of happiness I'm looking for.

What about pleasure? Well, again that seems all too fleeting. Sex is pleasurable. A cigarette is pleasurable. Watching a girl slip and bust her face on a treadmill while trying to answer her cell phone is pleasurable. But these things are all too ephemeral to justify turning your back on a lucrative and secure position in a large American corporation. No, I need more if I'm going to get closer to what I'm looking for. Incidentally, this is where the great American philosopher Denis Leary says that happiness is found. I'll withhold judgment for now.

Contentment - ah, contentment. We may be on to something here. This is what I want - to be content. But, what does that mean? I used to think contentment would come from leading an interesting and adventurous life. After six years in uniform, five continents, and countless islands, I was so desperate to free myself from that government-sanctioned slavery that I regularly hoped for a minor maiming, like the loss of a pinky finger or toe. Nope, that wasn't it. Maybe knowledge would be the key. So, off to college I went and I was happy there - for a while. But the life of a college student in his thirties with a wife is one of constant financial strife. No, obviously I need money to be happy. So, I took my little degree in the arcane and useless and headed off into the "real world." Surely, not having to worry about money and having enough extra cash to do the things I want to do, like travel, would bring me sublime contentment. I bought a decent car and took myself to Rome before figuring out that I'm fucking miserable.

So, here I go again on my own (with wife in tow). I'm turning my back on a healthy income because my job leaves me drained and hollow and I refuse to put up with it anymore. Somewhere between the ages of 32 and 34, I lost sight of my childhood fantasy world. Not that I think I'm going to have any luck finding a job as a secret agent/archaeologist that runs a private investigation firm on the side, but I refuse to play the role of corporate tool anymore. I'm currently finding contentment with the knowledge that I have the nuts to say, "This isn't who I am, so fuck you." When I was in the navy, I promised myself that if I ever found myself that miserable again, I would walk. I'm keeping a promise to myself and for that I'm currently very happy.

Who knows what the future holds? Will I actually find that elusive contentment that I've been searching for most of my adult life? Probably not. I definitely won't find it if I don't even know what I'm looking for. But, like Socrates and Meno discussing the definition of virtue, I haven't come to a satisfactory definition of happiness and I didn't expect to. I have listed things that I know happiness does not come from and that's a good start. Like the last 35 years of my life, I'll just make things up as I go along - it's worked so far.

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