“Whereas I’m scared of the idea of entrusting my entire future to another person. Because, hell, aren’t they as fallible as I am? And just as scared?” I cut myself off. “Am I ranting here?”
Jack threw back his shot of bourbon, and motioned the bartender for more drinks.
“You are doing fine,” he said. “Keep going.”
“Well, there’s not a lot else to say, except that the moment you entrust your happiness to another person, you endanger the very possibility of happiness. Because you remove personal responsibility from the question. You say to the other person, make me feel whole, complete, wanted. But the fact is: only you make yourself feel whole or complete.”

From “The Pursuit of Happiness” by Douglass Kennedy

Time and again, we go back and forth to the source of happiness as if we were searching for El Dorado. In this novel, Douglass Kennedy reaffirms the answer we all know, “You say to the other person, make me feel whole, complete, wanted. But the fact is: only you make yourself feel whole or complete.” We often need someone else to share our happiness, but we cannot depend on anyone for it. The opposite is true. There are plenty of nasty people who can turn our life into hell.