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Happiness Is Not a Goal
Happiness can be placed at the end of a moving list: after the achievement, the relationship change, financial security, or the end of uncertainty. Goals can organize effort and bring real benefits. They do not guarantee a lasting emotional result.
The question is whether happiness must depend entirely on crossing the next finish line. If it does, each new goal can move the permission to be happy further away.
This is no reason to dismiss grief, illness, trauma, or hardship. People need support and real conditions matter. The distinction is smaller: a moment of happiness need not be invalid because something remains unresolved.
Goals belong in the future. Happiness does not have to live only there.