Quote | Creation/construction of happiness

Happiness isn’t a knock of good fortune that we must await, like the end of the rainy season. Neither is it something that we must ‘find’, like a motorway exit or a lost wallet. If only we knew the secret path and if only we could acquire the right job or the right boyfriend. Interestingly, the notion that happiness must be found is so pervasive that even the familiar phrase ‘pursuit of happiness’ implies that happiness is an object that one has to chase or discover. I don’t like that phrase. I prefer to think of the ‘creation’ or ‘construction’ of happiness, because research shows that it’s in our power to fashion it for ourselves.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness, p.15