In the studio I spoke with Lisa Portolan, author of a quite challenging book titled HAPPY AS, written by Lisa Portolan, offers the premise that we are actually being made miserable by our perpetual search for this elusive thing called ‘happiness’!
Lisa describes it in one chapter as ” …an indescribable emotion. Intangible. Ephemeral”.
I congratulated her on her courage in tackling such a difficult topic and expressed my own feeling that we so often don’t recognise happiness except in retrospect. How often do we hear wistful references to “the good old days” or “ah, those were the days..” but were they that at the time or has the memory become a little blurred and just “the good bits” recalled?
We agreed that happiness means very different things over the years. For a teenager it could involve parties, new clothes, flirtations, for a young mother the birth of her baby and for a granny the joy of cuddling a little grandchild.
From an advertising background herself, Lisa acknowledged that that industry often creates the desire, then produces the product to fulfil the desire!
It is a fascinating topic and one which could profitably be pursued in good company over several glasses of red wine!
a good book, a good life 
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