The search for happiness is a spiritual quest, but it’s a material quest, too. We want to find meaning and joy in this life on this earth. We can see that the prize we’re after might be considered selfish, but it isn’t a selfish happiness we want.
Happy people do not colonize land that already belongs to other people. They do not drop bombs, exploding lives and earth. Happy people do not lie to our face, stab us in the back, then scamper home muttering self-righteous justifications. . . .
Happiness may be uncool, but our refusal to be happy doesn’t make us more compassionate — it makes us mean.
— Ariel Gore, Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness, p. 31