trivial pursuit of happiness

At the beginning of Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, he quotes from Horace's Satires:

Quid statis?
Nolint.
Atqui licet esse beatis.

Like everything else I read in undergrad that made some kind of impression on me at the time; I've thought about this quote on and off ever since, and wished that I'd actually read Horace's Satires.

I'm not sure what I want to write about in this post, exactly. It's just that happiness of the human variety comes seems to me to come with some pretty heavy limitations, and consequences.

And if you're me, or any one with a moral conscience, you spend a lot of time probing those limitations and consequences, instead of just being happy--which sigfinicantly affects one's overall happiness score, let me tell you.

Maybe that's what Horace and Kant meant by the above quoted works.

Or maybe it's not, but I think it's what I mean to say, any way.

Happiness is not as facile a choice as New Age gurus would like us to believe. Rather, happiness seems to be comprised of a fragile, delicately balanced and nearly infinite series of choices, each of which could produce an unhappy consequence--and thus, unhappiness. There's a measure of uncontrollable fate in decision making, and thus, happiness.

So what makes us pursue happiness, if the pursuit is so fickle, and often, ends us producing the exact opposite of happiness?

Why the hell is it so hard to be happy, goddamit?!

I suppose if philosophers had figured that one out to any one's satisifaction, we'd have a lot less vegetables on our plates, and a lot more of our favorite dessert.