Happiness According to Winston Churchill

"In order to be happy," said Winston Churchill, "you need to find a task that requires perfection, is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it."

Internet Fair Use - Winston Churchill in Youth

As an individual endeavor and as a producer, I think that making great art, or preaching the whole counsel of God, fits this expectation of perfection and impossibility, even more than living a personal and honorable life, even more than serving others in a charitable or community cause, even more than the accumulation of wealth. 

Happiness seems to me to be a solitary pursuit, associated with the innermost self, not a social endeavor. I would propose that happiness is not the pursuit of pleasure or leisure or fun as espoused by many.

Perhaps Churchill's contribution in history was perseverance and fortitude and courage and national leadership in inspiring democratic people in the achievement of peace and freedom during and after a great war against all seemingly insurmountable odds. And amidst controversy. And amidst turmoil. And for his endeavor, there was a sense of Duty and Imperative.

Wouldn't it be paradoxical to espouse that he was having fun while accomplishing this endeavor? Did not the drive to accomplish this Noble Cause always still leave a sense of indomitable non-satisfaction? Was this a leisurely pursuit or endeavor?

The "happiness" or "satisfaction" perhaps came more from an alignment of the innermost self to the Noble Cause and expressing the persona in the ensuing and final achievement of making a difference in issues that mattered to him personally and to his people nationally and internationally.

Just thinking on things.