Emerson cuts against the grain of what we tell ourselves we want, suggesting that chasing happiness directly often leaves us emptier than pursuing something harder to name. The triumphal list—useful, honourable, compassionate—reveals that meaning grows from *outward* acts, not inward feelings; a surgeon exhausted by an eighteen-hour shift may sleep better than someone lounging on a beach, because weariness earned through service carries its own quiet dignity. What makes this unsettling is that it asks us to accept that a worthy life and a comfortable one may diverge, and that we might need to choose. When a parent sacrifices leisure to sit with an aging parent who no longer recognizes them, they're not pursuing happiness—yet most would say they're living as they ought to.