Pete Doherty’s reflection on happiness in the documentary Pete Doherty: Stranger in My Own Skin struck a chord with me:
Maybe happiness is not being able to know what’s gonna happen. Maybe if we knew the end of the story there wouldn’t be anymore story.
Thought provoking. As if happiness is not essentially a phenomenon in itself, but rather the absence of something else: expectations, assumptions, preconceptions.
So much of our unhappiness would never take hold if we focused on the present instead of trying to predict the future. So much disappointment would evaporate if we focused more on what we have than on what we think we lack.
This does not mean we should stop setting goals. We can continue to look forward with excitement and evolve along the way. The ongoing journey is the true goal, not the imaginary endpoint that we might briefly touch.
Seeing the beauty and forward momentum of never reaching a final destination, perhaps this is the essence of true, lasting happiness.