Somewhere in 4th century Turkey, an Eastern Christian monk called Evagrius Ponticus (or the more relatable Ev the Solitary) compiled the first list of deadly sins (or evil thoughts as he called them) in the context of the Christian believes. The concept was not new (come to think of a similar list put together by Aristotle much earlier) but Ev's list just stuck.

However, that initial list had 8, not 7, deadly sins. Sadness was a deadly sin once ... and rightly so!

Ev was right, and along other sins (i.e. pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth), they should have definitely kept sadness.

Equally, there were 8 virtues contrary to those 8 deadly sins: humility, charity, chastity, patience, temperance, kindness, diligence and, finally, happiness ... at least until Christian leaders decided to drop sadness as a cardinal sin and therefore happiness as a virtue too.

So, someone decided that being happy is not a good thing? That sounds crazy to me.

Luckily, some of us are committed to the pursuit of happiness in a variety of ways and forms.