Happiness

We tend to view happiness as a thing to be acquired or gained. We also tend to view it as a property of certain external things (jobs, relationships, status); acquire the thing and their attribute of happiness will also be acquired.

Might we, even if we personally reject this, view the 'key' to happiness in an idea or view? That is, acquire the correct piece of knowledge, of information and happiness will be ours. Happiness is to be found in a certain LOGOS. Yet again it is something to be acquired, to be sought after externally and gained.

These views consider happiness as an object. These views seek externally for something that ultimately can only be found internally. These views suggest that it is something to be acquired rather than a process that is to be unfolded- the potential already abiding inside of us. These views suggest that there is no work to be done- no transformation of mind, or our fundamental habitudes.

"One must practice the things which produce happiness, since if that is present we have everything and if it is absent we do everything in order to have it."
-Epicurus