The Fallacy of Pursuit of Happiness
They tell you the point of life is to be happy. You hardly question it. To argue against it is like to arguing against having money. So you carelessly assume it's true that the ultimately pursuit in life is to be maximally happy.
Let's call that happiness-maximalism.
So you compile a comprehensive suite of pasttime activities to aimed generating happiness, like a factory conveyer belt delivering pleasure.
I'm not known for being good at generating happiness. But I don't think getting good at it is difficult either. In fact with the right drugs it's exceedingly easy. Which tells me tells me generating maximal happiness isn't high on the worthiness scale.
You see, the happiness maximalists got it wrong. Happiness is not the end, it's a mean.
Happiness is necessary insofar that it is required for you to fulfill your purpose.
Your purpose is the end, being happy is one of the tools to get there.
What is your purpose and how to find them is beyond the scope here.
Consider the fact that no historical role model is celebrated for his aspiration to just be happy.
But finding a purpose though is tough. Some people couldn't find one their whole life; some who do fail at fulfilling it. So how about hacking it and make being happy the purpose?
Happiness as a purpose in and of itself is like a badly written recursive loop with no end condition. A poorly done MC Escher drawing. It doesn't work, eventually the void will catch up to you.
And that's the burden of freedom. The freedom given to you to pursue happiness is a misnomer that really means the freedom to pursue your purpose without them imposed upon you by authorities.