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| Photo by Thiago Cerqueira on Unsplash |
Happiness is a silly life goal. Not because being happy is
silly or juvenile or anything like that. Your average nihilist
will be able to tell you that the world is a smoldering dumpster and that
happiness is the refuge of the weak-minded or intentionally myopic. This sort
of nihilism feels smart, may actually be held by smart people, but is anything
but. It’s a conclusion drawn from only the most obvious facts. Nihilism is lazy.
I really enjoy being happy. I enjoy when my son runs up to
me and hugs me and shares stories of his day with me as if he’s giving me a
precious gift. Or when I tuck my daughter into bed and she asks me to stay and
cuddle. Or when my wife smiles at me in a way that lets me know that she thinks
I’m pretty great. Or the whooshing feeling of taking my bicycle down a winding
descent on a smooth road. You get the idea.
But, and I cannot stress this enough, happiness is a silly
life goal. It is transfigured from happiness to selfishness when it becomes your life's focus. How awful would it be if the only reason I treated my son with love was
to receive the feeling of happiness I get when he loves me in return? Any
parent knows that a good deal of parenting is doing things that make your child
unhappy in the short term in order to allow them to grow into healthy adults
who can integrate into a society that is not devoted solely to their every need.
A toddler will not understand why you don’t cater to their every whim. Doing so
will buy you their love for the short term, but the trade off is that you will
raise a hellion rather than a child. And, of course, if you’re raising them
solely to love you, you will be raising that hellion in your own hellish image.
Another problem with happiness is that it is easy to shatter.
Every inconvenience or setback is a blow to your happiness, and if happiness is
your reason for being, it is a blow to the very core of who you are. Every
traffic jam, lukewarm meal at a restaurant, and stubbed toe becomes a dagger stabbing
into the pulsing heart of your reason for existence. It is a deep irony that making
happiness your goal makes you vulnerable to every tiny problem. Happiness is
shattered. All is dust and ashes.
The alternative to living for happiness is living for
purpose. I’m a Christian, so I devote a good deal of my time trying to grow the
kingdom of God. And, in return, I am provided joy (the deep satisfaction of
knowing I am doing something of eternal value) and, on occasion, happiness. But
happiness is not guaranteed. As I’ve said in other posts on this blog, ministry
is often toiling in the dark and hoping that something good grows from the work
you’ve done at some point in the future.
Happiness is controlled by circumstances, but joy can exist in
the face of hardship. Happiness requires everything to be going right in that
instance. Joy just requires remembering the big picture. That God is good. That
life can be hard and still worth living. That the presence of evil does not
negate the good in the world.
A coworker of mine (now retired) used to give me a hard time*
about the idea of joy. I’d get stressed about something or rant that someone
was doing something dumb, and he’d laugh and say, “How’s that joy, Tom?” or “There’s
that joy again.”
Joy, unlike happiness, is there when you’re doing the right
thing regardless of whether you notice it or not. It does not flit away when
you seek it. Rather, it sits next to you, waiting for you to remember that it’s
been there the whole time. In that respect, joy is like a good friend and happiness
is like a friend of convenience.
Those little prods were wonderful. They helped me remember
what was important. Helped me get out of my own head.
I am not here to be happy. The world does not spin on its axis to satisfy my every whim. But I can contribute to the grand drama of human existence in a meaningful way. I can fight the maelstrom of chaos with peace, love, and the power of Christ. I can find joy despite the waves of darkness and sadness that threaten to drown us.
“Seek the Kingdom of God[a] above all else, and live righteously, and he
will give you everything you need.” Matthew 6:33
“Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!” Nehemiah 8:10b
*”Hard time” in the sense of friendly ribbing. Everyone should have someone at work who can poke at them in order to make them better people.
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