We often think that happiness is something we achieve. However, as Eleanor Roosevelt reminds us, happiness is something that happens when we do everything else right.
Picture: Quinn Dombrowski/Flickr
In her book, You Learn by Living, Roosevelt outlined her view on happiness:
Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively. After a short time, a very short time, there would be little that one really enjoyed. For what keeps our interest in life and makes us look forward to tomorrow is giving pleasure to other people.
It’s a nice reminder that if your goal is just to be happy, you might want to think about what it takes to actually get there.
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