Happiness

What’s the difference between someone who’s happy and someone who’s not? It is that one encounters trials while the other somehow abstains from such encounters? Perhaps it’s an issue of money. After all, most marriages end as a result of financial turmoil. Or maybe it’s the fact that one person is more popular than the other. Or one is married and the other is still going stag throughout life. In reality, the issue of happiness has nothing to do with any of the aforementioned reasons. Happiness isn’t contingent on whether we are currently enduring a trial or not. We find opposition in all things, even in good things. That’s part of life. It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with money. Anyone who has traveled to a 3rd world country can tell you that there is no positive relationship between money and happiness. If anything, there is a negative relationship where the less money you have the more happy you are. If there is such a negative relationship, I think it has to do with realizing what’s truly important in one’s life… and it’s not money. Surely marriage can be argued as being a basis for happiness, but happiness can and should come long before that. Besides, if you can’t be happy before marriage what would make that change after a marriage? Like my drill instructor said, “The recruit you are today is the Marine you’ll be tomorrow.” There are very few intellectual things that can be taken from my time in the Marines, but I’ve found this statement to be rather profound. So how does one find happiness? Well, we all encounter opposition, and if happiness isn’t based on whether or not we are currently encountering opposition then the most important aspect of finding happiness is realizing that it’s that very opposition that allows us to find happiness. Bruce C. Haffen writes, “Without the taste of bitter in our experience, the taste of sweet is lost on us – we are without context, without a frame of reference and even the sweet things of life may be without meaning or purpose.” Continuing the point that our joy is in fact contingent on the presence and not the absence of opposition Haffen writes, “Joy-like grace- may well come in the midst of contrary experience, for it is a real part of life. Joy is not an alternative to opposition; it is part of a compound that includes opposition.” Further illustrating the point, those who have taken college courses have undoubtedly encountered a struggle or two. For those who have put in a lion’s share of effort to understand and to overcome these collegiate difficulties, eventually a figurative light bulb will turn on. At that point a measurable amount of joy is realized. In contrast, a student who finds the topic easy and does not encounter any struggles with it will glide through, more often than not without joy having not gone through the trial. In our personal lives, it’s important that we don’t seek to just glide through. On that very note Haffen writes, “When we are asked at the judgment bar how our life on earth was and what it all means, the following would not be a particularly satisfying answer: ‘Oh, it was nice. No big problems, really. It was a very nice life.’” We must not resist the refining fires that arise in our daily lives. I have been told that the measure of a man isn’t taken when all is well; rather it is taken during the tempests of life. How do we react in such a case? Do we act with honor and courage, or is it something we find ourselves needing to work on? Do we turn for help or do we pridefully think we are strong enough to handle it on our own? Just as important as IF we turn for help is to WHOM or to WHAT we turn for help. I know from my own personal experiences, as well as libraries of other’s experiences, that as we turn to our Heavenly Father for help we will be given the adequate strength to not just survive the tempest, but to find joy in it as well. When it comes to our interaction with our Heavenly Father, I try to imagine the interactions I will someday have with a child of my own. When my son is going through a problem and then decides to come to me for help, I imagine I’ll cherish the opportunity to lovingly guide him through life’s storms. I’m sure our Heavenly Father cherishes those opportunities as well. He wants us to come to Him, and we’re better off when we do. It makes one wonder why it doesn’t happen more often.