"I'm sailing away
Set an open course for the virgin sea,
'Cause I've got to be free
Free to face the life that's ahead of me,
on board, I'm the captain, so climb aboard,
We'll search for tomorrow on every shore,
And I'll try, Oh Lord I'll try, to carry on

I look to the sea,
Reflections in the waves spark my memory,
Some happy, some sad,
I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had,
We lived happily forever, so the story goes,
But somehow we missed out on the pot of gold
But we'll try best that we can to carry on..."

--"Come Sail Away" by Styx

I love this song. My family used to dance to it all the time, all together, in the living room when I was really little, laughing hysterically and just having a great time. Of course, I had no clue what the song was saying. It's really actually not that happy, especially at the beginning.

I would like to question something in this song - seriously question it. This person dreamed as a child of living "happily forever" but ended up missing "the pot of gold" so now they can't be happy, all they can do is try to "carry on."

So say you make a mistake, miss out on that one opportunity, drift away from a friend you wish you'd kept, spend your money on something that turns out to be a bad investment. Everyone will do these things at some time or another. But do they mean that we can never live "happily" again?

I think not, especially if our joy lives in the friends and family we love, the small things that we can enjoy every day, and most of all our faith. Of course we will all have hard times and better times in our lives, but if we truly choose to, we will always be able to do more than just "carry on." Looking at a pretty flower. Smiling at a child. Petting a puppy. To "carry on," we don't have to do any of these things. But these are the things that make the most of a difference, for us and for others. Not necessarily the pot of gold.
In short, I guess I'm trying to say that I think it's all about how we define living "happily forever."