Is Happiness Imaginary or Not?

"Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children and by children to adults." -Thomas Szasz-

Szasz is stating that happiness is imaginary. If he is saying this, he is also stating that other emotions, such as anger, grief and sadness are also imaginary. Happiness is not an imagination, but is something one can always find, deep, in people’s hearts. Szasz’s statement illustrates his opinion on how presently everybody tries to please and make each other happy rather than pleasing and satisfying themselves. For example, having something as small as a piece of bread or having a chance to see one’s parents after a year or two of being separated. From my perspective, happiness is not imaginary because every person, at least one time or another, feels happiness or some kind of emotion in his or her life.
Instead of getting a diamond as a gift from a person, one would rather much be happier receiving a gift that he or she has spent a tremendous amount of time on. Everyday, one misses the happiness in little things and tries to find happiness in bigger, much grand things. Sometimes, the littlest things in life are the thing to give a person true happiness. Such as, being able to have a piece of bread might seem like a petty reason to be happy. However, by looking at the situation from the other person’s perspective, it is the most important thing in his or her life. If he or she had not eaten for days, acquiring that bread would be happiness to him or her. Him or her obtaining the piece of bread is not an imagination; instead, it is reality. Although other people may not consider it as happiness, to the one who needs the bread, it is regarded as the most prized thing in the world. Happiness is what he or she makes it out to be as there is no clear definition. Above all, small things that may be of no importance may display true happiness. Moreover, one may never notice how special