A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the

“A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.” Thus spoke Bette Davis, the fiery star whose eyes once commanded the silver screen and whose spirit burned brighter than fame itself. Her words, though born from the glittering halls of Hollywood, ring with the wisdom of an ancient oracle. For they remind us that when we chase happiness as if it were a prize to be seized rather than a garden to be tended, it slips from our grasp like smoke. True joy is not found in possession or conquest—it is woven gently into the harmony between desire, duty, and the soul.

In her life, Bette Davis knew triumph and loneliness, glory and betrayal. She was a woman who fought fiercely for her art, defying studios, lovers, and critics alike. Yet even she, whose name echoed across the world, confessed that the endless pursuit of happiness had nearly undone her. In the chase for success, for recognition, for the shimmering illusion of fulfillment, she discovered a terrible truth: when one seeks happiness above all else, one begins to sacrifice the very things that make it possible—love, integrity, peace, and meaning.

The ancients understood this peril well. They called it hubris, the blindness that comes when a mortal sets one desire above the order of all things. The Greeks told of King Midas, who begged the gods that all he touched might turn to gold. His wish was granted, and soon his joy turned to torment—for the food he touched became metal, the embrace of his daughter became stone. His story is the eternal mirror of Bette Davis’s warning: when we want happiness at the expense of everything else, we destroy the soil from which happiness grows.

Even in our own age, we see this same tragedy repeat itself. There are those who chase pleasure until they grow numb, those who climb toward power until they stand alone upon a barren peak, those who seek perfection until they can no longer love what is real. They forget that happiness is not a trophy to be won, but a balance to be kept—a gentle rhythm between giving and receiving, striving and resting, loving and letting go. To demand happiness without humility is to demand sunlight without the dawn, or the bloom without the root.

Consider the tale of Emperor Ashoka of India, who in his youth sought to expand his empire at any cost. After a brutal conquest, he looked upon the field strewn with the dead and felt a vast emptiness within. The happiness he had pursued through domination had turned to ash. Only when he turned inward, renouncing violence and devoting his reign to compassion and wisdom, did he discover peace. Like Bette Davis, he learned that happiness cannot be torn from the world—it must be grown through harmony with it.

The wise therefore seek not happiness itself, but the right way of living. They plant seeds of kindness, patience, and truth, and from these roots happiness blooms quietly, like a flower that opens of its own accord. When one lives for meaning rather than pleasure, for love rather than ego, for truth rather than victory, happiness comes unbidden, as a friend who arrives without being summoned. The soul that ceases to grasp finds itself full; the heart that stops demanding begins to overflow.

So, my children of the future, hear this counsel and remember it in your days of longing: do not make happiness your god. Make virtue your companion, gratitude your guide, and love your law. When your hands reach too eagerly for joy, let them rest instead in service. When your heart aches for more, look instead at what you already hold. To live rightly is to live happily; to live only for happiness is to live in chains.

And thus, let this be your path: seek balance, not bliss; seek meaning, not mirage. Do not measure your life by the fever of desire, but by the calm of the heart that knows peace. For those who worship happiness above all things will surely lose it—but those who walk with grace and purpose shall find that happiness, quiet and steadfast, walks beside them all their days.