Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare

There are few truths as stark and as necessary as the one spoken by George Eliot, when she wrote: “Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one’s self to do without it.” These words are neither cold nor cruel — they are the tempered wisdom of a soul who has gazed deeply into the storms of life and learned that peace is not born of pleasure, but of endurance. Eliot, whose life was marked by solitude, unfulfilled love, and relentless introspection, knew that to live well is not to demand joy, but to cultivate strength of spirit when joy departs. Her message to us is not despair, but discipline — the noble art of standing tall in the absence of delight.

The ancients would have called this the virtue of stoic acceptance. For Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, happiness was not something to chase, but something to outgrow — a fleeting condition, too fragile to serve as life’s foundation. To rely upon it is to be at the mercy of the winds. But to prepare oneself to do without it is to master the self. Eliot’s wisdom walks the same path: she bids us to find a deeper calm, one untouched by the turbulence of desire. In this she teaches the highest kind of freedom — not the freedom to have all we wish, but the freedom to remain whole when all is taken away.

Consider the life of Helen Keller, who was struck blind and deaf at a tender age. By all worldly measure, happiness should have been impossible to her. Yet, guided by her indomitable will, she transformed darkness into insight, silence into song. “Although the world is full of suffering,” she said, “it is also full of the overcoming of it.” Keller did not await happiness; she prepared to live without it — and in doing so, found a joy more profound than pleasure: the joy of strength. Such souls reveal that when we cease to demand happiness, we often discover meaning, and in meaning, something far richer than fleeting cheer.

Eliot’s wisdom also warns us against the idolatry of happiness that enslaves modern hearts. The world teaches us to measure our worth by how happy we appear — by laughter on our lips, wealth in our hands, affection in our homes. But happiness so pursued becomes a mirage, leading us deeper into thirst. The wise learn to anchor their peace not in the changeable, but in the eternal: character, duty, and inner harmony. To prepare oneself to do without happiness is to build a fortress within — where one’s worth is untouched by fortune’s rise or fall.

There is a kind of heroism in this quiet readiness. It is not the triumph of the battlefield, but the victory of the heart that endures disappointment with grace. Think of the widow who continues to live kindly though her home is empty, or the artist who paints though the world has forgotten his name. These are warriors of the spirit, uncelebrated yet divine. They have learned that to live rightly is to fulfill one’s task, not to secure one’s reward. Happiness may visit them, or it may not — but they remain steadfast, for their peace is not dependent upon the visit of the fickle muse called joy.

Eliot herself lived such strength. Cast out by society for her unconventional love, misunderstood by many, she nevertheless continued to write — to give the world novels filled with compassion, humility, and truth. She found meaning not in happiness, but in purpose, in giving voice to the struggles of the human soul. In her life, as in her words, she showed that dignity lies not in being happy, but in being unbroken. To prepare to live without happiness is not to surrender to sorrow, but to transcend it.

So, my listener, take this lesson to heart: Do not make happiness your master. Welcome it if it comes, but be ready to walk without it. Build your inner temple upon patience, gratitude, and virtue. When joy deserts you, let purpose remain; when comfort fades, let courage endure. For the one who can live nobly without happiness has already found a peace greater than happiness itself — the peace of the soul that is free.