There is rarely any need for us to concentrate on matters that take us off the various pathways to happiness. But invariably, we do stray! The principal reason is from the clutter that we accumulate in our minds from our complicated, covetous lifestyles. The effects of the material world that we live in are anaesthetizing to our real Purpose and pursuit of happiness. Matthew 16:26 warns us of the fate of losing our chief Purpose in living: For what has a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

The point is that we are literally losing our way in the world with our mindless attention to insignificant matters and materialism. For enduring happiness, we must let go of all of the extraneous pursuits of life that conflict with what is really important to us. If we could only learn to live with an austere attention to what is significant and abandon all that is the antithesis to a quality life, we could rediscover our sense of Purpose and our true sense of happiness. The indispensable key for each of us is to keep life focused and simple. As a collective society we have thus far failed to realize this, but we still maintain our individual right to do so . . . to march to a different drummer.