It is actually fairly logical - happiness is ever-changing. On sober moments we realize it: it is really not much use to strive toward lasting happiness. There will always be something that comes along to interfere with our plans, and force them in a different direction.

Planning for future happiness is something we all learn, but it is, in retrospect, as shortsighted as laying out a strategy for a long-term business operation: We consider all other factors to remain static, and if they are not - and most of the time they are not - then we have to redefine our standards.

Being happy here and now is, the only thing we could ask for and should strive for.  Happiness for tomorrow is a factor that is yet to be determined, considering the fact that we may not even be around anymore at that time. Even if we are, everything may have changed: not just our perceptions, but our circumstances, bystanders, values, environment...everything.

Looking and planning ahead too far is not a total waste of time, though, but it should be done with appropriate sense. It should be executed with the realization that everything is subject to change, and we should either envision different scenario's in order to determine the different formulations of future happiness, or we should just take life as it comes: day by day. Something like the golden midway between the living standards of the nomadic tribes, who never store and strive and live like there is no tomorrow, and our current "civilized" culture that tries to keep everything under control by storing, saving, and inventing to no end.

The best way to go may be to reformulate happiness everyday, and, with that, define it as narrow as can be. In other words: incorporate as few factors in its realization as possible. If you can be happy without the incorporation of too many other individuals, material things, or living conditions, you are as close to a stable level of happiness as possible.

And one more thing: Forget about total happiness. That's only possible when you discard every other life that is even slightly attached to your own, and every other aspect that is out of your control: your job, the weather, your country's economical condition, you name it. But decent happiness can be achieved. Here and now. Later? That's another story.

Be happy here and now
For tomorrow, the standards may have changed
And the factors that are in place today
To contribute to your happiness
May have altered
And the perceptions that you currently sanctify
May have shifted
And the living ones you surround yourself with
May have expired or transformed
And the environment, the values, or the circumstances
May have metamorphosed
Into a shape, direction, or magnitude
That you had not foreseen
And that will direct you toward new definitions
Of what happiness is...then.

About the author:

Joan Marques emigrated from Suriname, South America, to California, U.S., in 1998. She holds a doctorate in Organizational Leadership, a Master's in Business Administration, and is currently a university instructor in Business and Management in Burbank, California. Look for her books ":Empower the Leader in You" and "The Global Village" in bookstores online or on her website: http://www.joanmarques.com