The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect.

Happiness comes and goes with circumstances you do not control, while peace and self-respect are produced by what you do. That is the practical difference being drawn, and it changes what you would work on. You cannot arrange to feel good on a Tuesday; you can arrange to be someone who kept their word this week.

Self-respect is built out of a small number of specific acts, most of them unwitnessed. The promise honoured once it became inconvenient, the thing owned up to, the standard held when nobody would have known. None of those acts needs you to feel good first, which is what keeps them within reach in a flat week.