Pleasure and Happiness

I've forgotten where I read this, but the idea of it stuck with me: pleasure and happiness are not the same thing.

In our culture, we've generally adopted the false notion that pleasure leads to happiness. It would be more accurate to say that pleasure distracts us from unhappiness. Pleasure is one of the topical analgesics we use for fast, temporary relief from the reality of our own lives.

There are going to be events and experiences in our lives that cause pleasure. We should neither seek them nor avoid them. The main thing to understand about pleasure is that it is fleeting, and that struggling to keep it coming will eventually lead to a hard crash.