A remarkable book that will both guide and inspire, "The Happiness of Pursuit "reveals how anyone can bring meaning into their life by undertaking a quest. When he set out to visit all of the planet s countries by age thirty-five, compulsive goal seeker Chris Guillebeau never imagined that his journey s biggest revelation would be how "many "people like himself exist each pursuing a challenging quest. And, interestingly, these quests aren t just travel-oriented. On the contrary, they re as diverse as humanity itself. Some involve exploration; others the pursuit of athletic or artistic excellence; still others a battle against injustice or poverty or threats to the environment. Everywhere that Chris visited he found ordinary people working toward extraordinary goals, making daily down payments on their dream. These questers included a suburban mom pursuing a wildly ambitious culinary project, a DJ producing the world s largest symphony, a young widower completing the tasks his wife would never accomplish, and a teenager crossing an entire ocean alone - as well as a do-it-yourselfer tackling M.I.T. s computer-science course, a nerd turning himself into real-life James Bond, and scores of others writing themselves into the record books. The more Chris spoke with these strivers, the more he began to appreciate the direct link between questing and long-term happiness -- how going after something in a methodical way enriches our lives -- and he was compelled to complete a comprehen