Bestseller: The Good Life by Hugh Mackay It is, Mackay says, driven by the commercial interests of the ''happiness industry'', which has fuelled the idea that happiness is our birthright and the pursuit of happiness is an appropriate goal for our lives. ''We believe we have an entitlement to perfection and have an obsession with self-esteem - particularly in relation to our kids,'' he says. ''We have got to pump them up and make them feel special and tell them that they can be whatever they want to be.'' Mackay's bestselling book, The Good Life: What Makes a Life Worth Living?, was prompted by his concern at the trend towards people believing they are entitled to happiness. ''We have been through gender revolution, IT revolution, cultural revolution, threat of global warming and the threat of international terrorism.

''When we feel as though everything is changing too fast we look for stuff we can control and that leads us to think 'I am going to have the best life I can'. ''But the pursuit of happiness does more harm than good - it sells us a rather shallow and hollow idea, that if we work hard enough at it we can feel happy.'' The Good Life is all about engagement, and the idea that as social creatures we do better when we think of ourselves being socially engaged, rather than obsessing about ourselves and what emotional state we happen to be in. The ancient Greeks used the word ''eudaimonia'', which is popularly translated as happiness. But their idea was something much more complex than what we mean when we say happiness, according to the book. They talk about being a dutiful citizen, fully engaged with the life of the community and being prepared to sacrifice yourself in favour of other people which is better translated as ''wholeness''.

Mackay says adversity is what teaches us resilience - citing swimmer James Magnussen who failed in the London Olympic mens' relay and said a day later he had learnt more about himself in the past 24 hours than in the previous 24 years. ''We all know what he means because we know that divorce or retrenchment or serious illness or some other adversity that life throws at us are life's great teachers. We learn very little from happiness.'' ''How to live the richest possible life is to be fully engaged with the community that supports you. ''I think the tide on all of this is turning - we have bipartisan support [this week] for the national disability insurance scheme - the Prime Minister has got it wrong in saying we should support this because any of us could become disabled. ''The community at large knows that's not the point. The point is that there are people out there with disabilities and we need to support them.

''We admire ourselves much more when we are being altruistic rather than when we are being selfish.''