# Chapter 176

Folks are looking for the happy place in life, thinking it is a destination they arrive at through some cosmic combination of forces or good fortune that comes together randomly or as a result of our efforts at pushing the cosmic happy world in our direction. Burton Hills said that happiness isn’t a destination, and I immediately think, “he has never been to Chiang Mai Thailand when there is snow on the ground in Pennsylvania!” And I mean that literally. Life may not be happy there, but it is as close to a happy place as anyone can find in the middle of winter. Warm day and night, beautiful mountains, spicy food, and pleasant people.

But Hills’ is right, happiness isn’t a destination, neither physical nor mental, its a way of living, its how we approach all of life, and it happens inside of us. We can be happy in northern Canada in the middle of a snow storm or we can be happy in SE Asia in January on a warm beach. While I think every rational person in the world would prefer the beach, that is just not actually so. My best bud Kimmy would always choose the snow storm over the beach. On the other hand I think snow storm people are not as happy as beach people, but that is not an empirical study or proof, just my bias toward warm temperatures.

Many decades ago I thought that being married to the perfect person would make me happy. And I married her. And while she is perfect, I was still just as unhappy as before. Lesson here, happiness is not a destination (or marriage), it is a way of living, it is inside me or not at all. While warm temps can encourage me in many ways, there are unhappy people in Asia too. Like you and me, they have to find a way to live happy.