The Pursuit of Happiness (March ‘23)

Living isn’t always easy. The human experience is marked with pain, discomfort, disappointment and all kinds of suering. It is an enigma - as society progresses, so does our development in modern medicine, technology and science, but the problem of evil remains unsolved. Man can send a man to the moon, but he cannot yet make himself happy.

Moments of despair come in every life. While experiencing extreme suering, or sometimes even the drudgery of day to day life, one is tempted to think that it would be better if we could leave it all behind. Simply cease to be.

“All men seek happiness. This is without exception.” Thus says the philosopher Blaise Pascal, and it is a truth confirmed daily by our own experience. But how do we attain happiness? This is the question most important in the life of every person, so much so that our right to the pursuit of happiness is protected by the founding document of this country.

If we have the disposition to see them, the moments of joy in our lives can be countless. The satisfaction of smiling at a stranger, of giving gifts to loved ones, of a beautiful drive or a perfect cup of coee are ours for the taking, or more accurately, the making. It is possible to create these moments of happiness, and so then a life of happiness, if we are willing to open ourselves to the beauty of the everyday.

No life is easy, and some lives are particularly challenging. However, the greatest and most noble lives are fraught with suering and obstacles. Challenges in our lives can take us lower, or bring us higher than we could ever be otherwise, increasing in us compassion, strength and courage. We can let life lower us to nothing, or we can allow us to become what we were made to be.

Life is filled with struggles, and we will continue to have struggles until our life is completed . Though isn’t it better to struggle, than to not be given a chance at all? An abortion takes a human life. It steals

a chance for the pursuit of happiness. Some argue that abortion is necessary for preventing miserable lives, but the truth is when you take away a life, you don’t take away misery, only an opportunity; a pursuit. And this is something every person, based on the principles of freedom, deserves.