What is this
business about happiness? Do you hear it all the time like I do? I just want to be happy. I’m not happy. Is happiness too much to ask
for?
It’s sort of like a cold. You know,
you don’t feel like yourself—you feel like something’s coming on. You just want
to go home and sleep and hope that whatever virus is having a heyday in your
system runs into an army of white blood cells.
The search for happiness resembles
the war against the cold virus. I think I’m not happy today. I’m coming down with some unhappiness. Maybe
if I just do whatever, it will all go away, and I’ll be happy again.
Generally, I tend to think of
happiness in relationship to what other people say about it, whether those
people are happy or say they are. This week I asked myself about my personal
happiness. Now, I didn’t spend a long
time navel gazing, but after a while I concluded that I didn’t know.
Furthermore, I wasn’t going to invest even more time ruminating on why I
couldn’t answer the question.
Instead, I took it to
a different level. Whether I’m happy or not is not relevant or important to me.
Contentment outweighs my desire for happiness. Perhaps that’s cheating or playing
with words. Let me know if you think so. But contentment connotes a choice, on
my part, to accept my life. Happiness has to do with what’s happening around
and to me that pleases me. Contentment is not the whipped dog view of life: Well, this is my miserable life, and I have
to accept it. It’s saying that I can choose not to live in misery when I
don’t have what I think I want. I can look at what I have with gratitude and
continue to grow as a person.
The true cure for unhappiness is presence. Let your manner of life be without
covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for he hath said, I
will never leave thee or forsake thee. (Hebrews 13: 5, KJV) We covet things because we think they
will make us happy. We want someone else’s life or things, believing we will
finally have what we want when what we are searching for is the presence of
God. Don’t you find it interesting that
the verse doesn’t say don’t covet because eventually you’ll get all the stuff
you want so you can be happy? No, it says don’t do it because I’m always going
to be there for you. I will be enough for you. And that is contentment.
An equation I’ve been working on most of my life is this: Godliness with contentment is great gain (I
Timothy 6:6, KJV). To accept the
presence of God in my life as the greatest satisfaction I can find and to
receive the life he offers me is enormous gain for me or anyone who chooses
that path. Focusing on the true source of satisfaction is what fills my life.
Not Susie Sunbeam-Smiley Face stuff but rather a deep, lasting peace in my
inner being. For me it makes happiness irrelevant. I don’t even think about it.
Am I happy? It’s not a focal point. What a relief!
So what do you say? Are you happy? Are you content?
My thoughts: No one can make you happy, only you can do that for yourself. You can choose a smile or a frown. You are responsible for your own happiness; no one else lives to make you happy. I settle for contentment, too. Happiness can be so fleeting; contentment moves in to stay.
ReplyDeleteYour friend, PSP
Thanks, PSP, for your insightful comments. Contentment has so much to do with gratitude. No one should live to make us happy. That's the wrong focus. They'd be so disappointed anyway, with me, at least!
DeleteI once had a Christian counselor say to me," This is your life, get used to it, accept it, be content." I agree happiness is not the end all be all but if you are not content you need to change something too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts. I think there's a need for balance, which you are referring to. Am I satisfied with everything in my life? No. Am I content? Yes. But I'm also growing and wanting to move forward, asking God to make me Christlike. That takes many forms--practical life skills, spiritual growth and application. Balance again. The Christian life is so much about balance.
ReplyDelete