There are two ways of being happy; we may either diminish our wants or augment our means. Either will do, the result is the same. And it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that with happens to be the easiest. If you are idle or sick or poor, however hard it may be for you to diminish your wants, it will be harder to augment your means. If you are active and prosperous young or in good health, it may be easier for you to augment your means than to diminish your wants. But if you are wise, you will do both at the same time, young or old, rich or poor, sick or well. And if you are very wise, you will do both in such a way as to augment the general happiness of society.
I'd argue that what he is really talking about here is being "financially satisfied", which may well not be the same thing as "happy".
As I observe those of the liberal frame, I find they tend to MAXIMIZE their dissatisfaction by picking those with the highest wealth that they like the least, and focusing on how much those people have and how "unfair" that is. They work themselves up into a "wealth of outrage", but a "deficit of wisdom". They lose their way so badly that they tend to vote for those with the MOST "ill-gained wealth" (their standard). Kennedy(inherited), Kerry(married), Edwards(taken from a combination of the public (higher medical costs) and poor to moderate income people(the people filing suit that Edwards took a big cut of their awards), Hillary (recently wealthy on book deals), Obama(recently wealthy on book deals) ... etc.
They arrive at the point where their ONLY "wealth" is outrage. They may not even have any "wants" of their own, other than to see "the wealthy knocked down a peg or two", and somehow they believe that they can vote for multi-millionaires that would somehow shoot THEMSELVES in the foot (pocketbook)? Not a very likely prospect, but the wisdom of a Franklin is converted to the rage of a Marx, and rather than focusing on creating something good for society as a whole, they attempt to tear down others in a vain attempt to reduce the outrage that has become their only "wealth".
Much of happiness is really a factor of how much of our life is focused on PERSONALLY doing something for the benefit of others. For some reason, those in the liberal frame tend to become "outraged" at some set of people that have had financial success, and then subsequently think that their own personal "contribution" can be their "opinion that the world is unjust". They see themselves as somehow "on the side of good" because they manage to have an opinion that they see as "just", even though their ability (or even interest) in actually DOING anything to help others may be quite limited.
The following is by the author of the book "Who Really Gives", an excerpt on the web here.
BUT EVEN after controlling for all other factors, religiosity, measured by the likelihood of weekly attendance at a house of worship, remains by far the most salient predictor of both charitable contributions and volunteerism. Those who attend a house of worship once a week are 25% more likely to give than those who do so never or rarely. And when they do give, they give four times as much. Nor is the generosity of religious people limited to the religious community. They are 10% more likely to give to explicitly non-religious charities and 25% more likely to volunteer for secular groups, such as the PTA.
Unsurprisingly to those that have read Jesus, the liberal lefties that claim the most "righteousness" relative to their generosity and social involvement are actually far LESS likely to "do unto others" than the very people they malign at every opportunity.
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