March 26, 2026

Last week I watched the film Eternity (2025) starring Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, and Callum Turner. In this movie’s world, people are presented with a choice after they die: Where will you spend eternity? At the beach? In the mountains? You only have one choice, and so you must choose the place that makes you happy.

The pursuit of happiness is a quest which we can all relate to. And we also resonate with the weightiness of it. We ask ourselves, Am I choosing the right things that make me happy? How do I know? All of us want happiness, but we’re often unsure about how to actually get it.

In this adapted excerpt from Making Sense of Us, fellow Sam Chan dives into our culture’s happiness narrative. He suggests that we find happiness by not looking for it—at least not directly. Happiness comes as we pursue a meaning (and ultimately, a Person) that’s bigger than ourselves.

Follow the link to read the whole chapter, then watch an excellent companion video to the lesson filmed on location in Times Square in New York. Making Sense of Us is a great resource for individuals, groups, and churches to learn the stories our culture lives by and how to point people to the best story of all.

Walk through Times Square in New York City, and you can’t miss it. The place just screams pleasure. The lights. The noise. The people. It’s a stimulation overload. Crowds go there to be entertained. And why not? After all, Times Square represents the happiness-seeking passion of the United States, a nation founded on the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s in the founding DNA; it’s in the lifeblood of Western culture that we have the right to pursue pleasure on our own terms.

If you ask most Westerners what they want for their children, they’ll immediately tell you they want their kids to be happy. What better goal could there be?

This is the storyline we’ve been given, but it falls short for several reasons.

The first is hedonic adaptation. What’s that? Think of it this way. When you wake up in the morning and you have your first cup of coffee, you get that wonderful buzz. But if you have another later in the morning, there’s less buzz. Then, if you have a third cup in the afternoon, there’s no buzz. What’s happened? You’ve adapted to the coffee. You’ve gotten numb to it.

It’s the same with happiness. No matter how much we stimulate ourselves with pleasure, we become numb to whatever has made us happy.

Happiness studies show that whatever makes us happy—a new job, a new car, or a new romantic partner—gives us an initial burst of pleasure. But that burst of happiness lasts one or two years (if we’re lucky) before we’re back to where we started. We just get numb again.

You see it in the New York tourists. When they first arrive at Times Square, their eyes light up. They’re so happy; they jump, clap, and laugh. They take selfies and upload them on social media. They say, “Look at me. Look at how happy I am!” Then, after a while, they stop and think, “Huh, is this all there is?” They become numb to it all and walk away.

Another reason the happiness story falls short is what we call the hedonic fallacy. This principle says that just by chasing happiness, you’re guaranteed not to find it. That’s because happiness is ephemeral; it’s always the by-product of something else.

Chasing happiness is like chasing the rainbow. The rainbow always fades before you find it because it’s only a by-product of the sun. If you want to find a rainbow, perhaps you should be chasing the sun instead.

READ MORE ABOUT A BETTER WAY TO BE HAPPY