There is a much about the journey of life that involves some kind of suffering. Even if you are born in a safe, prosperous country, of able body and mind, in a reasonable, ordinary family, then adversity of one sort or another will come your way. It is an ancient grievance, a topic and study for philosophers and theologians.

The modern remedy is usually to seek out happiness in whatever way one can. The pursuit of happiness is a given these days - the spin doctors will tell you that it usually resides in owning things, in superficial alteration, on keeping up with others. There is much work to do on the self, goes the mantra. Of course, this advice often has the opposite effect, creating lonely, competitive people who don't understand why the medicine doesn't work, or why it only takes effect for a short time.

There are a zillion books on the subject and I suppose most of them have some merit. Reaching a modicum of happiness is not an unreasonable goal, though, as I have written about before, it should largely come as a by-product of pursuing other goals, such as the immersion in the moment that can come through a much-loved activity or job. We can't get enough of those moments but there is no such things as a continuum. They are discreet and proscribed by time and space.

So it was interesting when reading a Schopenhauer essay on suffering a night or two ago when I came across the great philosopher's thoughts on happiness. Striving for it is in vain - that way lies anxiety, depression and disappointment. Rather he notes, one should try to reduce the amount of suffering in one's life. Only by identifying and defusing those things can cause us to suffer can we begin to approach something like a state of happiness, though we may not recognise it as such. 

Not all suffering can be eliminated, of course, though how we think about what causes us to suffer is as much the problem as the solution. That's what CBT is all about. The Stoics had a crack at that too. But just reimagining the whole shebang that is 'the getting of happiness' is worthwhile, a project more doable then striving for something that is largely intangible.