“What do you seek?” Such are the first words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John. This is the most important question one can ask oneself, Christian or not. Some strive for a successful career; some long for a loving relationship; some wish for all the finer things in life. Buddha puts it succinctly: “All living beings desire happiness and recoil from suffering.” Well, let’s have a look at the ABC of happiness with reference to some idioms.

A: alive and kicking. Happiness is a feeling. And you have to be alive to feel it. This should hold true unless a spiritual realm is scientifically proved or you have first-hand experience to prove otherwise. If you say that someone or something is alive and kicking, you are emphasising not only that they continue to survive, but also that they are full of energy: With its share price hitting an all-time high, this tech giant is clearly very much alive and kicking in its niche market.

B: bring home the bacon. According to Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, humans are motivated to meet their needs in a hierarchical order: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualisation. Basic physiological needs such as food (hence bacon, aptly), sleep, sex, and excretion have to be fulfilled before we move up to satisfy the more advanced needs. If you bring home the bacon, you earn enough to support your family or you achieve what you need to achieve: Nowadays, more and more women are bringing home the bacon while their husbands stay at home and take care of the children.

C: as rich as Croesus. Croesus was the king of Lydia from 560 to 546 BC, whose legendary wealth left for posterity the eponymous expression “as rich as Croesus”. Someone who is as rich as Croesus is extremely wealthy. Can money buy happiness, though? Maybe, but only to a certain extent. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, other than physiological and safety needs that are the bottom rungs of the ladder, none of the higher needs are directly associated with money. There are different sources of happiness. Remember your delight when you go out for a stroll in the spring breeze or bask in the warmth of the sun on a winter’s day? One can always enjoy the beauty and enchantment of nature for free. Also, some people are happy just being a couch potato, spending a great deal of time watching television. As sedentary as it might appear, it is a guilty pleasure on the cheap.

Paradoxically, our most strenuous efforts to attain happiness more often than not defeat the purpose. “Happiness must ensue. It cannot be pursued. It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness,” observes Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist. He explains, “Happiness is the side effect of living out the self-transcendence of existence. Once one has served a cause or is involved in loving another human being, happiness occurs by itself.”