Can we ever be happy? It does seem as though people are at least temporarily happy in some instances, they may have arranged to move to new accommodation or they’ve just met somebody they like and that person in turn, likes them. Perhaps they’ve been accepted for a job they applied for. The only problem is that these are really only passing fancies and any joy we experience can be relatively short lived. Arthur Schopenhauer the German philosopher believed that our natural condition is one of suffering because our desires are rarely satisfied and this causes us to feel disappointed. He concluded from this that we should consider this in our relations with others and never harm them in any way, in fact quite the opposite; we should try to do them every good. He wrote a book; The World as Will and Representation in which he explains his theory of human existence.
When we are in a sombre mood it is difficult to think beyond our misfortune or even why we are in the mood. But life is an amazing experience, for instance the ability to see and understand the world of things; I mean perception, and the ability to converse with someone in a way that they understand. We tend take these abilities for granted but take them away even for one day, one hour and we would be so miserably inconsolable.
“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer