"So, what do you want from life?" I asked a male friend of mine who is not yet 50, but definitely in mid-life. He replied, without hesitating, that he wants to be of service to the world, to help change things for the better, to make a difference. He then referred to balance within himself, including the word spiritual as part of that balance, and moved on to speak positively about the prospect of a relationship in his future. Finally, he enumerated pleasures like gardening and exercise and antiques and reading.

In turn and in contrast, he listened to my list. It began with the desire to love deeply and be deeply loved, and then identified my own need to be of service to others and, through my acts and/or thoughts, to catalyze changes, to make the world a better place. I don't know why, but I omitted tennis and long walks and spirituality and my garden and laughter, but I add them now, after the fact.

I have returned daily, in "my mind's eye," to this relatively unremarkable conversation, and I am beginning to recognize what compels me to review it. I am a marriage and family therapist. I am a writer. I am the mother of two young women in their twenties. Since I am not a Neanderthal, I am also a participant in the world and society around me in suburban Connecticut and Manhattan, and I read many newspapers and magazines and books each year.

As therapist, I am frequently invited to engage with another who is experiencing a phase or a moment of deep existential angst. Invariably, because of my training and my nature, I ask clients the same question I posed to my friend: "What do you want from your life?" More often than not, the answer takes a while to form, but my client will eventually respond: "It shouldn't be so hard, you know...I just want to be happy. It's all I've ever wanted, really. It's what my parents always wanted for me, too...."

Now, let me express my bias! Whenever I hear that "happy-quest" answer, I become infuriated. I do not deplore happiness. Rather, I object to having happiness perceived as a realistically obtainable goal in and of itself. I believe that happiness has become an over-idealized state-an escape valve-when aspired to in a vacuum. Such a quest not only destines the seeker to failure in achieving "happiness," it relegates the seeker to succeed only in experiencing an internal emptiness, a vacuous lack of purpose, and an alienation from the very parents from whom this tenuous "happiness goal" derived.

"What," you may be wondering, "is wrong with being happy?" And I respond, "Nothing." When we have a purpose in life, we live fully. This is true whether the purpose is to parent your children with love and principles, or to put out fires when and where they occur, or to write the great novel of the century, or to deliver babies, teach children to read, serve in politics or business or medicine, choreograph, practice law, survive either illness or poverty, be a minister or rabbi or chiropractor.... The nature or explicit identity of your goal doesn't change the basic, underlying principle: In order to be validated while we are alive, we each have a paramount need for a goal that is clear and concrete, as an ongoing part of the foundation for our psychological health.

When we obtain our primary goal, we are often driven to go beyond it or to change paths entirely. But so long as our efforts along a path are identifiable, even measurable, so too are our satisfactions and/or disappointment. Some days we may be too pressed for accomplishments to think much-if at all-about "happiness" but there will be moments when we are acutely aware of it. And all the time, there is the unmistakable and vital sense of where you are and where you need to be in order to consider yours a life that is worth being alive for and living in the fullest possible sense.

A man facing open heart surgery telephoned and asked if he could spend some time with me in my office the day before he went into the hospital. I agreed, not at all confident that I could be of any help to him if fear was his companion. But it wasn't. Instead, he was looking for a place where he could retrace and evaluate the 60 plus years he had traveled in his life. When he concluded, he was somber but joy-filled. "If I die tomorrow," he told me, "and I certainly hope I do not, I will have the knowledge of having experienced a fully satisfying life journey. I have succeeded in the law, the profession I chose as a way to help others make sense out of a sometimes entangled and puzzling world, and I have had the good fortune to live with a woman who is my wife and best friend, to raise two children who love us and are the source of enormous pride, and I have friends with whom I talk and argue and laugh. What's more, I work for, and am respected in, my local and religious communities. I want more years, but I am pleased by what I have had, and so I feel at peace."

He survived. And he has spent the subsequent years doing more of what he knows best: working hard, for and with others, and knowing, in the quiet moments that often occur when least expected, the great joy of being himself. Is he a happy man? Well, of course he is. But not because he set out early in life with the goal of being or becoming happy!

And that is my point, entirely. Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof, responds to his wife's inquiry: "Do you love me?" with a list of the things he does for her, day in and day out...and then ends up admitting that "if that isn't love, then...." And, I believe, that's how it goes with happiness as well. It's the daily things we do, with frustration or satisfaction, that propel us towards the goals for the greater good, ethical behaviors, and survivals that contribute to a sense of happiness. Happiness, in and of itself, is too ephemeral to be a goal. Actual happiness requires the precipitant acts of identifying, and comporting oneself through, actions and philosophies which, once accomplished, fill us with a sense of purpose achieved.

Now, I am not unmindful of another feeling to which we also relegate the concept happiness. It's what may be our experience in the presence of a rainbow, or an early crocus, or at the sight of an infant, or when in the presence of lovers, et cetera. This spontaneous joyfulness or delight comes unsought and even unearned. It simply touches us when and if we are open to it. It's a bonus. Perhaps "happiness" is the right word to use in describing such moments, but I don't care to taint the experiences with any of the limitations of language! Further, while this sensation is highly desirable, for better or for worse, it is not the stuff of which parental goals are made. When a well-meaning Dad or Mom says to their daughter, "I just want you to be happy," frequently they are employing shorthand for having a full belly, a nice home, and possibly a reliable job, two kids, a car and even a dog. And when they wish the same phrase on their son, typically they are urging him to 'be a man' and make them proud, in whatever way that is defined in their family. Vague, but clear! However, it doesn't get us to actual happiness.

There is a cultural malaise upon us here in the affluent United States, which has been present for three or more decades, and I suggest that this misdirected quest for happiness de facto is a primary contributing factor. With so much anger and hunger and mistrust and distrust in our society, I believe that we would be serving ourselves and the generations that will follow us far more efficaciously if we wished for our children, grandchildren, and friends such things as:

• a life of service to humankind,
• the ability to improve the lives of others with every initiative you act upon,
• a life of creativity in the area in which you are interested and/or talented (music, dance, science, philosophy, etc.),
• and, my personal favorite: a life of striving to know others as fully and richly as is possible, a life in which you allow yourself to be known by those with whom you meet.

Martin Buber considered "authentic human existence" to be found in the "meeting" between people, their moments of "I/Thou" realities. Deserted by his own mother at the age of only three, Buber's philosophy provides us with--if we choose to explore it--a way of understanding our own myriad relationships in a lifetime. Buber considers the experience and nature of all of our relationships to be a pathway to learning both about oneself and God. Seeing God as the eternal Thou, and understanding that each Thou with whom we relate emanates originally from God, Buber contends that an individual can become whole only in relationship to a Thou. When we construe the objects of our relationships as "Its," thus relating exclusively in the sense of I/It rather than I/Thou, we denigrate the other, diminish our self, and distort any possible I/Thou experience or relationship.

Rather than "happiness", citing Buber, I would wish many experiences of the I/Thou upon those I dearly love and care about. Happiness may, if it chooses, appear in one's life from time to time. But life, if lived with I/Thou as a desired model rather than the abstraction referred to as happiness, would be fully satisfying and leave us precious little for reproach as we look back over our days on this earth.