Apparently, Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote:

'Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.'

Sounds like good quality greeting-card sentiment.

But is it barbed?

The American Declaration of Independence says that 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' are God-given rights. Is part of the problem with the West that we take that phrase literally and out of the context of our relationship with God (and even with each other). We seem to want those rights to be fundamental to our relationships -- the rules that they obey -- rather than the other way round.