The pursuit of happiness, which American citizens are obliged to undertake, tends to involve them in trying to perpetuate the moods, tastes and aptitudes of youth.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There is something very unique in American iconography about this notion of the pursuit of happiness.
Americans are good at pursuing happiness. And the Americans who pursue happiness most diligently show that we're also good at running it down and killing it.
The pursuit of happiness is in our Constitution. We're all entitled to have the best we can.
Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
We live in an age that stresses personal goals, careers, happiness, work and religion. The emphasis is on the individual and how best that individual can satisfy himself.
Happiness is mostly a by-product of doing what makes us feel fulfilled.
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.
When the Promise of American life is conceived as a national ideal, whose fulfillment is a matter of artful and laborious work, the effect thereof is substantially to identify the national purpose with the social problem.
To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.'