When I say that “We all love to win, but who loves to train?”, what do I mean? I mean happiness and enjoyment throughout the whole process is the destination, and sadness in any of it is never desired. Happiness does not mean total play or total work, it means enjoying the process as well as the result, that is it.
Being a staunch and strict objectivist philosopher with a psychological emphasis on full epistemological understanding of what life is, I can say and mean this: It is as simple as what I said above, but if you want to read more into it, here goes.
Reality is a rational step by step process, not something you cheat and take short cuts at which means that you enjoy the process as well as the result in every way that counts, and discard the unnecessary. Logically, I could end here, but I will explain myself more: The necessary is what gets results, the unnecessary is that which does not get good results. That simple, that succinct. Realistically, there should be gray areas in my thinking about this point, but there are not. This is where I get rid of all mysticism, I do what works and get rid of what does not systematically and efficiently when needed. For, like I said in the title, actively pursuing sadness until “rock bottom” or worse is always a vain pursuit.
Happiness is a result, and happiness during a process genuinely gets results. Have you ever heard of anyone being happy with inefficiency and not getting things done in their favor? Only in the extreme bureaucratic mentality have you heard of that “phenomena” or reality. Everyone, and everything naturally moves toward completion and betterment. To short hand the term, everybody loves a winner, nobody loves a loser. That is just realistic human nature. The only person who does not really want to succeed is one who is doing something genuinely wrong, and destructive. Indeed, destruction does not lead to happiness, especially initiated criminal destruction without any reason or reality to it except for the sake of destruction without reason or regard for reality. So, I will put it in a reality that cannot be argued really. Everyone wants a happy process as well as a great result, everything else can be discarded as unwanted. This is where happiness is the genuine and real destination and sadness is the vain pursuit. What is, is, sure. But what is good, must be achieved then preserved as a process and result.