The Path to Happiness Is Narrow But Easy

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece of love and betrayal, begins in a moment of chaos for the Oblonsky family, when the father is discovered to be having an affair. With the parents distracted and distraught, the children “ran wild all over the house,” and every member of the family “felt that there was no sense in their living together.” Misery reigned.

Hence the novel’s famous opening line: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

We all want to be happy and have happy families, so the Oblonsky hypothesis is troubling. It suggests that happy people are some sort of elite group who have found the right way. To be happy, we must stay on a narrow path; on either side are sheer cliffs. Stray from the path in any of the many ways you might, and you will fall into unhappiness. If you are like me and my family, and are a bit, well, unconventional, you might fear that you are already off the path and will not find it.

 
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