I told Father Matthew my thoughts about how all we really know about happiness is that constantly ceding to the next craving—what the monks here might call “worldliness”—seems to breed unhappiness over the long haul. Once we understand that, happiness doesn’t require as much as we might think. “You see it here, at this monastery,” said Father Matthew. “Look at all these young men here and the women at the convent. In spite of the austerity, in spite of the workload, in spite of all these things that might seem like a hardship and total waste of time, these people are all happy.”
