Pursuit of Happiness

 In the Declaration of Independence, it states...  "we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."

What does this mean?

For me it means that as a result of our birth, we have been automatically been given certain rights.  And that these rights are:  life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

• Our birth gave us LIFE
• Our birth gave us LIBERTY or FREEDOM
• Our birth gave us the right to pursue Happiness

Of course, the first two seem rather obvious but this third one is a bit of a PICKLE...  that is to say, what does it mean to be happy?  And how do we set about pursuing happiness?

Ironically, when we are born, we are a baby, then a child, a teenager, a young adult, middle aged, then a senior citizen, then retired.  During that lifelong process, we may not fully understand what happiness really means.  Additionally, if we think we know what happiness means, this understanding is likely to change as we grow older.

Are we just given one shot at pursuing happiness or is this an ongoing process...  as this is what pursuit seems to imply?

I would not think that if our pursuit of happiness violated the pursuit of happiness of someone else that our pursuit would be allowed legally...  but, I don't suppose anyone's pursuit of happiness has been challenged in the courts...  I could be wrong.

This Declaration of Independence statement begs another question as well...

• Why do we think or assume that we are entitled to pursue happiness just because we have been born?
• How do we know what our creator was thinking?
• It is kind of presumptuous to think we have the ability to think like a/the creator, isn't it?