The Problem with Pursuing Happiness

According to our founding fathers, every human has the God-given right to pursue his or her own happiness. As a governing principle, such wisdom is very beneficial. Government needs to get out of the way and let its citizenry pursue their lives as their consciences dictate. But as a governing principle for life, pursuing happiness is a bankrupt strategy. Why? Because the abiding condition know as happiness doesn’t exist.

Grasping the concept of happiness is very much like trying to nail the proverbial piece of jello to the wall. It’s impossible. Happiness by definition is a condition that results from positive or happy circumstances. I’m happy if the weather is nice; I’m happy if my golf scores are low and the stock market is high. I’m happy when my spouse wants to have sex. I’m happy when the scales hit the right number and I like what I see in the mirror. I’m happy when I can pay all my bills and still have ample play money left over. I’m happy when I’m not in conflict with someone else.

But with the simple flit of a butterfly’s wing any one of those conditions for happiness can become a storm of chaos and thus, unhappiness–my spouse has a headache, again; the market is down 300 points; my health is declining; I’m unemployed, etc. Add to the tenuousness of my circumstances the cultural mantra that we can never have enough, that we can never be truly fulfilled until we have the next thing, and that there is always someone who is just a little happier than we are because they have just a little more than we do, then my happiness is doomed from the get-go. And thus we’re back to the jello: I might be able to pursue happiness, but I will never achieve it. It simply can’t be nailed down.

And so for all of us unhappy capitalists who have pursued till the cows came home and still aren’t happy, the Bible offers a simple alternative–joy.

Joy is a state of being that has nothing to do with conditions. Joy exists when our hearts are set on things that don’t ebb and flow. We’re joyful whether the market is up or down. We are joyful when we’re healthy or sick. We’re joyful in riches and in extreme poverty.

See the difference? Joy comes in knowing you’re loved for free, forgiven for everything and secure before God. Joy comes from knowing that no matter how much we suffer here, heaven awaits us. And, joy comes from the curious process of putting others’ needs before our own. That’s how a Chinese pastor can write from a prison camp and speak of his joy. That’s how grieving parents can talk of their great joy in the wake of burying a child. That’s how a person living with less than enough can still lift his or her hands and weep before God in worship. It has nothing to do with circumstances.

So, what about you? Friends, let’s aim higher. Don’t be a slave to your circumstances. Don’t be fickle and fleeting in your happiness. Bask in the love of God and get past what’s going on around you. Never let how some other person sees or treats you steal your peace and joy. And never let some material thing you have or don’t have dictate your feelings. Rise above the need for stuff. If you don’t, you’ll never be happy.

 

Want to more about real joy? Read my new book Enough: Finding More by Living with Less.