I have written some posts on happiness, some of which are A Reason to be Happy and How to be Happy. I guess the quest on happiness is a never ending quest for all of us.

I just recently came across a quote inspired by Buddhist teaching which says that unhappiness derives from the incessant habits of judging every experience as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, and of trying to hold on to the pleasant ones while shunning the unpleasant.

Everybody wants to reexperience the great feeling until they no longer can give the happiness it does. For instance, you went to a 2 week vacation after 5 years. You had great enjoyment. Ergo, you try your best to duplicate it again. Second time, you enjoyed but not as much. For sure, by the fifth time, you could be asking yourself, ” what was so great about this?” This is what economist would say is the law of diminishing returns.

This is the same experience we have, whether it is dining out, or going out to the bar. A great experience contributes less and less in enjoyment the more times it is repeated. Pretty soon, pretty much everything has been tried, and you try desperately to look for another means of happiness — whether it be in new computer games, new surfing experiences, new night outs, or new partners.

The important thing to recognize is that experiences per se has not that much power to making us happy except for the thoughts, emotions and attitudes we have in experiencing them.

Thus, the long way to sustainable happiness has to be not anymore new experiences, but on properly identifying our attitudes toward it.

The second way to happiness is finding meaning, and relevance in the things we do. That means that happiness and contentment has to be mental, and is not inherent in the experience, but in finding relevance in that experience.