A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.

The remark frames happiness as something undermined by single-minded pursuit—especially when it becomes a supreme goal that overrides relationships, work, ethics, or ordinary satisfactions. The logic is paradoxical: treating happiness as a commodity to be maximized can produce anxiety, selfishness, and perpetual dissatisfaction, because every choice is judged by whether it “delivers” happiness. Read in light of a hard-driven life in the public eye, it also suggests a learned skepticism about sacrificing everything—career, love, health, integrity—for a promised emotional payoff. The quote ultimately advocates balance: meaning, commitment, and values are presented as prerequisites for happiness rather than obstacles to it.