Several people have asked me since I moved to Dallas if I’m happy.

The question has made me think seriously about happiness and its role in my life.

Happiness is so very fleeting. Even if nothing bad happens, eventually I’ll get bored with just about anything that makes me happy. Even Disneyworld.

Happiness is also destroyed fairly easily. I’m happy now, but just wait ’til later today. Someone will ask me to do something at work that I don’t wanna do, or the dog will poop on the floor, or any number of other little things that happen regularly that threaten to upset my precariously balanced sense of happiness.

Not that happiness isn’t worth enjoying. It would be a waste to ignore or attempt to avoid the feeling in the moments where it quietly exists.

What I’m saying–I think–is that it’s not worth pursuing, contrary to our country’s mission statement. Happiness is icing on our proverbial cake. If it comes, so much the better. But there are more important things in life to spend time and energy chasing: things like faith, hope, love.

And the best of these is love.