If you cooked down life to the greatest single desire of every human being and named it……..it would be happiness. Seems pretty straightforward……..and yet so many of us struggle with happiness. So many people suffer because they are not happy. They spend their resources going down one path or another……only to find that it wasn’t there. I’m almost 70 years old. I’ve seen a lot of happiness and a lot of unhappiness…….and here is what I’ve learned.
Happiness is not an immediate destination. You can’t go there. You can’t will yourself to be happy. You can’t achieve it directly by action or thought. Happiness, it turns out, is a secondary destination. Paradoxically, you become happy by doing something else. Ironically, the only way to reach this particular destination………is by going somewhere else. But where?
You become happy by doing what you were designed to do. You become happy by doing the work that you were created to do. This work is hard wired into your soul…….it is written on your heart. Any attempt to deny it or circumvent it will interfere with your happiness. Your only hope for true lasting happiness……..is to do the work that you were created for.
So…….how do you go about this? Here are some do’s and don’ts………wisdom from a guy who has been around the block.
Don’t spend your time angry. You were not created to be angry. Every minute that you spend angry is a minute subtracted from your life. The number of minutes that you have is finite……every minute spent angry is wasted forever and cannot be retrieved. It is not possible to be angry and happy at the same time. People will say that you are naive…….generally, these people are unhappy.
Don’t worry too much. Ration your time spent worrying. Things will threaten you and your loved ones. It is perfectly appropriate to worry about some of these threats……but not all of them. Worry can lead you to make changes that will improve your world. So…….it is OK to worry about things that you can change for the better. Don’t waste your energy worrying about things that you cannot change.
Don’t concentrate on stuff. No matter how much or how little you have, there are people with half as much who are happy. Stuff isn’t inherently bad…….it just isn’t the path to happiness. Stuff is a distraction. Stuff is a waste of your resources. It is a waste of your limited time.
Build relationships. We were created for relationship……some of us more so than others. There are two primary classes of relationship…….relationship with God and relationship with our fellow man. In its highest form, relationship is expressed as love. It should come as no surprise that the two greatest commands in the Bible are…… love God……love your neighbor. Because……this is what you were created for………in fact……..this is the only thing that you were created for. From a practical perspective…….how do you go about this? Worship the guy who created you, God……and care for your fellow man. Anything that you do that does not directly or indirectly manifest care and love for God or your fellow man is a distraction that will not make you happy.
And there it is…….love God……love and care for your fellow man…….don’t be angry……don’t worry much……especially about stuff.
I have chosen my epitaph:
A man’s wealth is not measured by the things he has accumulated…….but rather…….by the people he has accumulated
Here lies a wealthy man.
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
David, ESV
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus, ESV
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
Jesus, ESV
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
Paul, ESV