It happens all too often: we find something that makes us happy, and then we get used to it, and the happiness we derive from it wanes over time.

What if happiness isn’t a state of being (holding the object that makes us happy), but rather a transition from one state to another (acquisition of the object)?

When we finish the transition, the object stops being a source of happiness for us.

It helps us rationalize some of the things we feel guilty about — a man who has spent a year walking on the dusty roads barefoot will find more happiness in a pair of old shoes than someone who added another Clarks to his collection. The bigger the transition — the more happiness it brings.

But now we have to face the grim reality: nothing will give us indefinite happiness. Not love. Not money. Not freedom.

But there is one trick to perpetual happiness. To be able to make the happiness transition again, we need to first lose something and transition back. Loss. Sadness. Hurt. Happens all the time.

Without sadness, there would be no happiness, and we would all just be awfully content, and what a boring waste of life that would be.

The Fallacy of Jealousy

Since happiness is basically a transition from Point A to Point B, it is natural that these point should have the same beholder. The problem with jealousy is that we try to measure the extent of someones happiness with our position as the focal point.