The happy person is distinguished by zest: a wide, outgoing interest in things and people for their own sake, rather than as means to the self's advantage. The more things a person is genuinely interested in, the more opportunities for happiness and the less they are at the mercy of fate, since no single loss can empty their world.
Much unhappiness comes from excessive preoccupation with the self, whether as the sinner tormented by guilt, the narcissist craving admiration, or the megalomaniac craving power. Each of these turns attention inward and shrinks the world; the cure lies in directing interest outward onto objects and people that are not oneself.
The exhausting fatigue of modern life is largely nervous rather than muscular, produced by worry and the inability to stop thinking about problems during hours when nothing can be done about them. Learning to think about a matter fully when it is timely and then to dismiss it, refusing half-conscious rumination, removes most of this strain.
Worries and fears grow when half-looked-at and averted from; the remedy is to look at the feared thing deliberately and in detail until familiarity drains its terror. Rational contemplation of a misfortune's worst case, recognizing it as not cosmically significant, reduces it to manageable proportions, whereas evasion magnifies it.
Envy arises not from what one lacks in absolute terms but from comparing oneself with others who have more, and it is among the most potent causes of unhappiness because the comparisons are endless. The escape is to enjoy the pleasure in front of you without measuring it against others' pleasures, since every advantage can always be outranked by someone.
Happiness is not pursued directly but arrives as a byproduct of interests and affections that point away from oneself toward the external world. The person who fastens attention on external objects and activities, rather than monitoring their own state, finds that happiness comes unsought while the direct seeker of it remains frustrated.