The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

cases are exceptional. Most people are not rich;
many people are not born good-natured; many
people have uneasy passions which make a quiet
and well-regulated life seem intolerably boring;
health is a blessing which no one can be sure of
preserving; marriage is not invariably a source of
bliss. For all these reasons, happiness must be, for
most men and women, an achievement rather than a
gift of the gods, and in this achievement effort, both
inward and outward, must play a great part. The
inward effort may include the effort of necessary
resignation; for the present, therefore, let us
consider only outward effort.
In the case of any person, whether man or woman,
who has to work for a living, the need of effort in
this respect is too obvious to need emphasising.
The Indian fakir, it is true, can make a living
without effort by merely offering a bowl for the
alms of the faithful, but in Western countries the
authorities do not view with a favourable eye this
method of obtaining an income. Moreover, the
climate makes it less pleasant than in hotter and