The pursuit of happiness

I've always been a bit puzzled by "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", this well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence.

It gives three examples of the "unalienable rights" which the Declaration says have been given to all humans by their creator.

I've always seen the “pursuit of happiness” as some kind of a trivial right; like, do we have the “unalienable right” to ski, watch TV or play golf, if these activities are meant to make us happy?

Well, I guess we probably have to think beyond basic definitions of happiness to understand what the original intent of these words were. We probably ought to move beyond the hedonistic aspects of happiness and focus more on positive emotions, individual virtues and positive institutions.

According to the Declaration, our Government should strive to enabling this state of affair, like taking action to guarantee all citizens' health and safety, including safe food, health care and sound living conditions.

In fact these puzzling words are meaningless because they had been changed at the last minute into “Property” by Thomas Jefferson before the Declaration was published. Most Americans ignore that important detail and it's a very good reason to question the literal value of our Constitution.

Perhaps, we should follow the example of the the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan that actually measures its country's Gross National Happiness index! Well, with all of this in mind, there's still a lot of progress that need to be achieved in the United States Department of Happiness!