History and Happiness

I really liked the following quote by C.S. Lewis:

"What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they … could … invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy. …

"That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended—civilizations are built up—excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top and it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few years, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run it on the wrong juice. That is what Satan has done to us humans." (Mere Christianity, New York, MacMillan Co., 1958, p. 39.)

I thought that was a very good point he made. When it comes to doing things that make us happy, I think it can be easy to forget what will really make us happy in life and the source of true happiness. I think this is especially true since it's very easy to become overly distracted with things that may be good and praiseworthy but that prevent us from doing what we know we should be doing in order to be truly happy.