Pursuit of happiness

THERE’S a cartoon from the New Yorker magazine which shows two middle-aged men languidly sipping cocktails in front of a fake chateau.

One turns to the other and says: “I could cry when I think of the years I wasted accumulating money, only to learn that my cheerful disposition is genetic.”

The pursuit of happiness, surely the most inexplicable of human of emotions, has become the great obsession of our times; yet a look at the roaring trade in pharmaceuticals and self-help books — including enticing titles like God Wants You To Be Rich — would suggest it has never been further from our grasp.