and many times over the course of zacharys life he had noted that the goals he so faithfully pursued and that he had believed during the pursuit would eventually lead to a state of happiness , that once obtained did not make him happy and often had the opposite effect : his first car in high school , which he had dreamed would be some magic carpet upon which to whisk beauties to the beach , had been a money pit ; his graduate studies , which he had dreamed as undergraduate would be a time of consultation among like-minded professors eager to create a familial atmosphere , had been a pressure cooker so excruciatingly tense that he had often thought himself at risk of spontaneous combustion ; and samantha an enchanting woman who he had , at first , dreamed would be his life partner , best friend , and confidante , had caused him to pass many days in his harvard lab in a love-sick stupor and feeling as if his work day consisted of mining coal with a pick ax .