HAPPY GOALS

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes. — Andrew Carnegie

Carnegie was a turn of the century business mogul who obtained great happiness through the accumulation of wealth. Wealth equaled power, freedom, luxury and philanthropy. 

There were only a few characters focused on a set goal.

Bernard's goal was to find a cure for Rose's terminal cancer.  He failed (unless you believe the island's magic prolonged Rose's life).

Sawyer's relentless goal was to find and kill the con man who destroyed his family. He succeeded by killing Cooper on the island, but not after becoming the man he hated his entire life.

Locke had a very weak goal of finding a "new family" unit or home where he fit in as an equal. He never found one.

Jack also had a very weak goal of getting his father's approval and acceptance. He never really received that acknowledgement from Christian.

Widmore had the ruthless goal of conquering the island. He failed when Ben killed him.

Kate had the transient goal of avoiding justice for her crimes. She also failed, but she really was not punished for them.

Sayid had the goal of reuniting with the love of his life, Nadia. But he failed in his own quest, both in real life and in the after life.

Desmond also had the goal of reuniting with the love his life, Penny. He found her and they moved on together.

Charlie had the unrealistic goal of getting his band back together. But he failed. Then on the island he had the goal of saving Claire. But he also failed in that rescue promise.

Then there were many characters who really had no goals. Hurley. Boone. Shannon.

None of these stated goals and resolutions were compelling or realistic. None of these goals had profound happiness as the end result. As such, LOST is really a series of sad consequences masked by an action-adventure overlay.

There are some universal basic human goals.

1. Goal of affiliation
In the most part humans are social so they want to be liked. Rejection is no fun and we'll do almost anything to avoid it. Not only do we want approval from specific people, we also want it from society at large.

2. Goal of accuracy
People who don't care about doing things correctly never get anywhere in life. To achieve our goals in what is a complicated world, we have to be continually trying to work out the best course of action.
Influencers understand our need to be right and so they try to offer things that appeal to our need for accuracy. For example, experts or authority figures influence people heavily because they offer us a 'correct' view or way of doing things, especially one that we don't have to think too carefully about.

3. Goal of maintaining positive self-concept
People want to protect their view of themselves because it takes a long time to build up a semi-coherent view of oneself and one's place in the world. We want to maintain our self-esteem, to continue believing in the things we believe in and to honour whatever commitments we have espoused in the past. Persuaders and influencers can leverage this goal by invoking our sense of self-consistency.  

Further, there are six basic attributes to build, foster and maintain an intellectual, human society:

The six basic pillars to build a sustainable society are equity, sustainability, productivity, empowerment, cooperation and security.

Equity is the idea of fairness for every person, between men and women; we each have the right to an education and health care.

Sustainability is the view that we all have the right to earn a living that can sustain our lives and have access to a more even distribution of goods.

Productivity states the full participation of people in the process of income generation. This also means that the government needs more efficient social programs for its people.

Empowerment is the freedom of the people to influence development and decisions that affect their lives.

Cooperation stipulates participation and belonging to communities and groups as a means of mutual enrichment and a source of social meaning.

Security offers people development opportunities freely and safely with confidence that they will not disappear suddenly in the future.

The main characters, at times, exhibited the three basic human goals affiliation, accuracy and positive self-esteem, but for the most part those personal goals had brooding negative connotations inside each character.

Perhaps as a result, the main characters could not come together as a cohesive community on the island because they lacked the will or consensus to build one using the six pillars  equity, sustainability, productivity, empowerment, cooperation and security.

If LOST was meant to be mostly a character study of individuals and their behaviors, it is difficult to argue that the individually and collectively the main characters reached many "happy" goals or achieved happiness on the island.