Happiness...

'The most sought-after and elusive of conditions,

happiness is one of the central themes in human history.

Yet do we even know what it is, much less how to attain it?'

…So begins a book entitled ‘The Discovery of Happiness’ by Stuart McCready.

In this book we meet Plato and Socrates, we visit Nirvana and the soul. From Sufism's magical dancing to the utilitarianism of the Enlightenment, the authors explore every facet of this elusive concept from a philosophical, academic and spiritual perspective.

But interesting as it is, in this book there are no pictures of my children, no kisses from my husband, no hugs from my parents as they arrive on the doorstep, no phonecalls from my distant sister, no texts from my friends, and no images of me flopped on the settee at the end of a hard day with a glass of wine in my hand and something mindless on telly, the kids snoring softly in their beds and my wonderful man performing culinary magic in the kitchen.

There are no pictures of the sun filtering through the clouds, no wafts of cardamom, no sensations of a soft pillow against my cheek, no heart-stopping moments of the sheer joy of being alive.

So whatever happiness is, it sure as hell isn't easy to put down in words! I tried...