2 service cats loving me....Laila @ work on my arthritis pain purring & massaging with 6 thumbs....KITI GONE negating my joy with her absence

A Warm Gun

The "happiest country on earth" is supposedly Denmark, but talk to some Danes and they will tell you that they are really just content. Contentment is not wanting TOO much. Denmark is a tiny country with modest prospects, not a world superpower, so its people are accustomed to thinking in less self-aggrandizing ways about life and meaning. They are not performance-obsessed. They are a relatively classless society where janitors attend dinner parties with politicians. They have relatively few worries about food, shelter, and health, as there's a meaningful and non-shaming safety net under all of it.

If a Dane has a steady job, a nice flat and maybe a beach house, and can make a cozy home life, they are good to go and don't live like there are hungry wolves just outside the door.

This is the pinnacle of happiness on Earth in the 21st century, for those with ears to hear.

I don't think happiness can be defined or pursued. it does not bend to logic. It happens and I know it when I experience it, but what I desire does not always bring me happiness. I think this is because everything is constantly changing and what worked in the past may not work in the future.

Zizek talks about a married man who had a mistress for many years and then decided to get a divorce because he thought that he would then live happily with his mistress, but it turned out that he was not happy after the divorce and Zizek speculates that there was something in the complex three person relationship which made the difference.