Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.

- Aldous Huxley

The Buddha's great insight was that it is not getting what we want that makes us happy. His somewhat counter-intuitive insight was that it is the losing of the desire that brings about happiness. Getting what we want often makes us only crave more - when what we've gotten inevitably fades away, we're right back to wanting again. So why not just get rid of the wanting?