https://phys.org/news/2018-07-impact-happiness-health-relationships-economy.html

In the United States, Thomas Jefferson penned the quest for happiness right into our founding documents. Does that make it a privilege or a right? Something we'd like to have or believe we ought to have? Perhaps the chase—the expectation of perfect happiness—may be a hindrance to finding it.

"The pursuit of constant happiness is doomed to failure," says psychologist and neuroscientist John Monterosso, a member of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "Humans weren't meant to be happy all the time. As biological creatures, we're built to strive." Monterosso is part of a nexus of thinkers across academic fields at USC—from economics to gerontology, from psychology to religion—who investigate the complex and unexpected ways happiness manifests in our lives.