The Folly of Planning for Happiness
Chasing happiness is chasing a mirage
“Life is What Happens To You While You’re Busy Making Other Plans”
John Lennon
There is a fine distinction between having a plan for your life and planning for life’s uncertainties. One is a rigid expectation—fragile and prone to collapse. The other is an act of prudence, a preparation for the inevitable unpredictability of existence.
Planning to be happy—dreaming of the perfect spouse, the ideal home, and the flawless life—is not planning at all. It is wishful thinking disguised as strategy. Life is indifferent to our fantasies. If you invest in an image of happiness as something to be achieved, rather than something to be recognized, you are merely setting yourself up for disappointment.
Life does not happen in some distant, imagined future. It unfolds in every passing second, in every breath, in every grain of sand slipping through the hourglass. The present moment is all that truly exists, and yet so many squander it—pining for a future that may never come or lamenting a past that can never return. The wise do neither.
Prudence demands we prepare for possibilities, not cling to certainties. The man who expects his life to unfold according to a script he wrote in his youth will crumble when reality deviates. But the man who fortifies himself with flexibility, who understands that change is not a threat but an inevitability, will stand firm even in the face of chaos. Those who plan for contingencies remain in motion; those who plan for a singular outcome remain stranded when it fails.
Happiness, too, is a mirage when treated as a goal. It is not a prize waiting at the finish line, nor a state of being that can be permanently secured. It is a fleeting moment, a light on the horizon, visible only when we stop chasing it. If you bind your happiness to an outcome, you will spend your life in pursuit of a ghost.
Life is not meant to be conquered; it is meant to be navigated. There will be storms. There will be calm seas. Neither lasts forever. But those who embrace the journey—who find joy in the present, prepare for the unknown, and refuse to let their peace be held hostage by expectation—will endure. And in enduring, they will live.