evidence: The first and most important key to finding happiness may be the most difficult for many people (especially those reading this article): To find happiness you must not seek it! In other words, the more you try to find happiness, the more it will elude you. I think Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) said it best, "Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." [...] In the case of happiness itself, many people make the attainment of happiness a fixed desire: "I must be happy." However, it is only when we realize that we don't need to be happy that we can find happiness. As William Saroyan (1908-1981) said in My Heart's in the Highlands "The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness." [...] Similarly, Charles Dickens stated in his novel The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, "Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes."