Happiness Is Ephemeral

A thought-provoking free verse poem regarding happiness.

Happiness is a false god.
We wish for an entire lifetime
filled with happiness,
but a life of perpetual happiness
is a human impossibility,
for happiness is ephemeral,
a wisp of smoke in the wind.
What makes us happy today
will dissatisfy us tomorrow.
One simply cannot exist
in a state of constant happiness.

Most people spend their lives
behind a happiness façade…
seemingly “happy” marriages
that hide private misery,
career “happiness” masking
a loathing for the work,
a generation turned to drugs
in pursuit of personal “happiness”.
Projecting the illusion of being happy
consumes people’s lives.

If happiness is not the proper goal
for mankind to seek,
if one might as well be desirous
of living in Shangri La as in happiness,
what then should humans pursue?
If not happiness, what is attainable?
Contentment.
Contentment can be constant.
Contentment with life is true happiness…


Please check out my ten books:
http://www.amazon.com/Jr.-Harry-E.-Gilleland/e/B004SVLY02/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0