Won't it be wonderful if there were a single formula for happiness? There is no such thing, and anyone who claims to have invented or found such a formula or equation is simply kidding, pretending, or trying to fool the rest of us. But it would be near-to-impossible to disprove the person's claim to gladness, because you'd have to live in the same house with that "happy person" for 30 days before you'd find out the fact that he or she only claimed to be happy all the time but was really just like the rest of us: unhappy in an unhappy world
Perhaps the closest any human being can come to cracking the happiness code is in being a good person, someone who is committed to doing what is morally right, as defined and understood by the dominant culture where that person lives. Religious people are said to be among the rare souls who have uncovered the mystery to happiness. They tend to link happiness or joy to being or doing what is good, godly and righteous.
The only trouble is that it is not that clear cut, or most humans would have followed the religious formula, and the world's billions of people would be mostly happy, glad, joyful. The reality is that being good and doing good may not result in happiness, at least not all the time. The only way godliness would produce permanent happiness in this life would be if only good things were to happen to good people, and only bad things were to happen to bad people. In a world where bad things happen to good people and vice versa, it is absurd to think or believe that lifelong happiness can become anyone's reality this side of the grave. The reality of a crippled world renders flawed every formula of happiness.
Concerning the morally good life, one writer penned these words on what he called "the straight life":
The straight life for a homemaker is washing dishes three hours a day; it is cleaning sinks and scouring toilets and waxing floors; it is chasing toddlers and mediating fights between preschool siblings. (One mother said she had raised three "tricycle motors," and they had worn her out.) The straight life is driving your station wagon to school and back twenty-three times per week; it is grocery shopping and baking cupcakes for the class Halloween party. The straight life eventually means becoming the parent of an ungrateful teenager, which I assure you is no job for sissies. (It's difficult to let your adolescent find himself - especially when you know he isn't even looking!) Certainly, the straight life for the homemaker can be an exhausting experience, at times.
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