On Happiness.

Can we suppose, just for the course of this relatively insignificant blog post, that the chief end of man is to pursue happiness and to find it?

Obviously we can't because that's a lie.

Happiness is a strange animal. Elusive, beautiful, capricious, extremely dangerous, like a giant golden-egg-laying peacock with fangs and eagle talons and ivory tusks for which one is often tempted to kill the thing despite the knowledge that not only will he forfeit the steady supply of golden eggs but also probably run into some technical difficulties involving the fangs and talons. That is to say, it can be a blessing. Also it can be really, really bad.

I live in a culture that teaches me to regard happiness as the highest goal that exists, to believe that there is nothing more worth striving for. Furthermore, I am taught that I am entitled to it for reasons that are inescapably vague. I am owed happiness because I'm an American. Because I succeed academically. Because succeeding academically leads to succeeding financially, every success leading to another greater one that ultimately yields happiness. Interestingly, it didn't occur to me until fairly recently that all this is a lie. For one, the best happiness doesn't have its roots in success as we perceive it here in America. But that's really neither here nor there. People could sit around and argue about that all day, and they do, and that's fine with me, and I also don't care. The important thing is that happiness is not everything. It's just one thing, one nice thing, that sometimes God sees fit to bless us with. Just like any other good thing that he can give and take away. It's not the same as contentment, and it's not the same as joy. We are commanded to be content and to have joy, but we are not commanded to be happy. Sometimes we are commanded to mourn.

My problem is with contentment. When I'm not happy, I scream at my heavenly father with tears in my eyes and pound my insignificant fists against the unyielding walls of providence, decrying how unfair it is that he hasn't given me the happiness I saw in the shop window. How I deserve it. How he clearly is cheating me by withholding it. How I don't just want it but need it. How, as such, he is a patently hateful God. Being unhappy isn't the problem; being discontent is. Fortunately, my heavenly father is patient with me. He forgives me for my temper tantrums. He loves me in spite of my vile ingratitude. And this is not sufficient proof that having him is better than having happiness.

Not that they're mutually exclusive, or that the proof really isn't sufficient, in case anyone wants to argue. The proof is abundantly sufficient, and I (acting as the judge in this case) have the understanding of a toddler.

The thing I'm trying to learn how to do is take blessing with thanks when it is given and take a lack of it with thanks when it is denied. Once I get that down, I'll move on to being grateful amid cursings and then I'll pretty much be good enough to save myself. I'll probably be happy by then, too!