How much is happiness
worth?
A London judge
had to answer that question, when a 70-year-old Englishman filed
a suit involving considerable damages he felt entitled to as
a result of an injury which prevented him from playing golf.
He asked the judge to consider the zest and pleasure that golf
brought into his life.
The difficulty
in trying to measure unexperienced happiness interested the judge
and he did his best to strike an equitable balance. But he discovered
what most of us already instinctively know, that we can't measure
happiness -- especially happiness that doesn't happen.
Everyone must
seek joy in his or her own way. A millionaire can be miserable
(Anybody remember Howard Hughes?) while a street sweeper may
be happy as a clam. (And what's a clam got to be happy about,
anyway?)
The inverse is
also true -- as inverses often are. A boy in the middle of the
Library of Congress can miss what Lincoln got out of a borrowed
book by the fireside.
Happiness, then,
isn't a matter of getting what you want. Rather, it's a matter
of wanting what you get. And no judge or jury can ever do that
for us.
Thirty bucks
is a lot, if you're broke!