Happiness Trap

From the "Witch of Portobello"

What the boy was experiencing in front of the television - a gateway into a different reality - is the same state I am going to induce in Athena. Everthing is so smple and so complicated! It's simple because all it takes is a change of attitude: I'm not going to look for happiness anymore. From now on, I'm independent; I see life through my eyes and not through other people's. I'm going in search of the adventure of being alive.
And it's complicated: Why I am not looking for happiness when everyone has taught me that happiness is the only goal worth pursuing? Why am I going to risk taking a path that no one else is taking?
After all what is happiness?
Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves alll the time if we are doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.
All right then peace. Peace? If we look to Mother, she's nenver at peace. The winter does battle with the summer, the sun and the moon nenver meet, the tigar chases the man, who's afraid of the dog, who chases the cat, who chases the mouse, who frightens the man.
Money brings happiness. Fine. In that case, everyone who earns enough to have a high standard of living would be able to stop working. But then they're more troubled than ever, as if afraid of losing everything. Money attracts money, that's true. Poverty might bring unhappiness, but money won't neccessarily bring happiness.
I spent a lot of my life looking for happiness; now what I want is joy. Joy is like sex - it begins and ends. I want pleasure. I want to be contended, but happiness? I no longer fall into that trap.