It’s difficult to get what you want. Even if we desire something, most of the time we don’t take the right steps to get it — that’s the problem with pleasure. We want to be happy, but we prefer pleasure. But pleasure and happiness are quite different. There is no happiness without pleasure, but if you want to be happy, in a deep way, you have to choose not to search for short pleasures, but to make the effort required for greater pleasure, which is where real happiness lies.

A good reminder that being happy is hard work, coming from the author of Happiness: A Philosopher’s Guide. (The book is a bestseller in France but was only recently translated into English. Here it is on Amazon.)