The pursuit of happiness

Am I happy?  How would I know?  Define happiness, using both sides of the paper.  In a new book by John Kay, 'Obliquity: why our goals are best achieved indirectly', he suggests that profitable companies are not those who always pursue profit at all costs, in the same way that happy people are often aiming for something else. Their happiness is a fortunate by-product of doing other things, of living 'a good life' with a clear moral compass.  So much then for all those books promising readers there are only 'ten simple steps to a happier life' and holding out the impossible dream of being able to 'make yourself happy in 30 days'.  (And I just love that word obliquity.  It's the sort of word that appears to be of recent formation but I was surprised to learn that it has an ancient pedigree, stretching back to Late Middle English, according to my OED, page 1428.  It stems from the French obliquer, to turn in a sidelong direction.)  The French philosopher Pascal Bruckner clearly agrees with Kay.  In his new book, 'Perpetual Euphoria', Bruckner argues that striving to attain happiness is more likely to lead to a state of unhappiness than not: that the active pursuit of happiness is a fool's errand.  Better by far, he advises, to treat happiness as an uninvited but welcome guest when and if it shows up in your life.  Hoorah to that.  I agree too with F. D Roosevelt's old saw, also quoted by Kay, 'Try something; if it fails, admit it frankly, and try another'. This reminds me of my family motto, carved into the lintel above the doorway of the ancestral shed: if at first you don't succeed, give up.