Well dear reader, everyone has at some point in their life heard the phrase “in the pursuit of happiness” However did you ever stop and think the quote should be “The Pursuit as happiness?” All too often, people everywhere sing fit achieving a goal, such as getting more money or catching the biggest fish in the pond, is going to somehow improve their life. However, very rarely does someone in the pursuit of a lofty life goal ever stop to think about what they are learning or enjoying simply because they are working towards a goal. don't get me wrong, achieving the end goal is always satisfying, however the pursuit of achieving something can be just as fulfilling as achieving a goal you set for yourself.
An example from my life would be receiving my Bachelor of Arts, I realized that I didn't really receive that much satisfaction from having my degree in political science (once the initial elation of a receiving it wore off.) I realized in the end that the degree itself is nothing more than a piece of paper. Like a lot of college students, I was so focused on actually obtaining my degree; as if the degree for a magical object, it was going to get me everything I was supposed to have in life. That I really didn't stop to enjoy what I was learning and how I was learning it as much as I should have. Like a lot of college students (or anyone for that matter) I realized far too late, that it's not the piece of paper it constitutes a degree it's what I learned, better; yet it's what I learned in how this knowledge added to the story of my life. I should have been focused on “The Pursuit as happiness” not the other way around. I guess I should have taken a page out of Ernest Hemingway's book, or more precisely, out of the Green Hills of Africa.
When writing Green Hills of Africa, Ernest Hemingway titled one of its sections “Pursuit as Happiness.” The heading, a riff on the Declaration of Independence’s party of “the pursuit of happiness,” no longer solely properly described Hemingway’s feeling about the safari he undertook which the e-book recounts, however his complete life’s philosophy.
Hemingway used to be ever in pursuit of new adventures and vistas, whether near travel, hobbies, or career; as a writer, he used to be continually making an attempt “for something that has by no means been done.”
One of the key shifts in turning into a grownup is shifting from searching for and choosing, to constructing and maintaining. If you ever hope to locate both depth and top in your relationships, faith, and career, ultimately you have to end exploring each feasible path, and settle on the people, place, profession, and philosophy you desire to commit yourself to.
But even after these foundations are selected, and the mission of placing down roots and establishing the edifice of a mature, significant existence begins, you should additionally hold at least one location the place you stay ever on the hunt. Everyone wishes one far away horizon, one audacious ambition, one glimmering goal; one issue to put together for, anticipate, plot out. Everyone wishes one factor to place the sometimes-decreasing-but-never-fully-vanishing hole between what you have and what you prefer presents the animating, mockingly enjoyable itch of perennial discontent.
A couple of years ago when, the Hemingway household posted a rediscovered, untitled manuscript of Papa’s, Ernest’s son borrowed a phrase from Green Hills of Africa and referred to as it “Pursuit as Happiness.” In the semi-autobiographical brief story, Hemingway spends hours at sea attempting to reel in the greatest marlin he’s ever encountered, however loses it in the end. Yet, although tired, chafed, and disappointed, he’s lower back out on his boat the subsequent day.
Catching the fish, was never the real point of the pursuit; I would argue it never should be.
Well dear reader, I hope this helps you To see that wallet even that life goal, is indeed something to be celebrated, it is also important not to forget the act of the pursuit itself. Remember, everything you do in life should be the “Pursuit as happiness” not the other way around.
