The Pursuit of Happiness

I have been thinking a lot about happiness. I am not alone either. The culture tells us it is our right to be happy. It seems that everything we do is for the sake of making us happy. We fill our spare time in things that make us happy. We buy things, we find jobs, we take trips, we choose relationships that make us happy. Even our own country’s founders knew that the human condition is one predisposed to the pursuit of happiness. What is happiness and what is the secret to happiness in life? Happiness is defined as, "the state contentment, pleasure, and joy". I have noticed that worldly happiness is the one virtue that all seem to agree is mandatory in this life. Even the miserable or mundane tasks are somehow expected to be enhanced, so that they give us joy or meaning and if they don't we just won't do them. We will hire those things out, or give them to someone else to do. Life has become the meaningless pursuit of an elusive goal....happiness.

It is elusive because it is a paradox; we think we will find worldly happiness by the act of filling our worldly emptiness, yet in reality it is in true emptiness that we find true happiness. Worldly emptiness is the purposeful pursuit of those things that numb the afflictions of pain, loneliness, and longing; the things we all feel because we live in a fallen world. Worldly emptiness is a human condition. We can be assured that if we are feeling it, others are too.  We try to numb those afflictions in order to find worldly contentment.   If we decided to sacrifice our worldly contentment we would find ourselves in a state of true emptiness, a place where we actually experience those afflictions. And if in this state we all reached out in faith, beyond our insecurities and pride to others, gave love, kindness, friendship, and selflessness, we would find that by our pouring out, we are filled up, for true happiness is the by-product of love.

It truly is that simple. Remaining in true emptiness is sacrifice, sacrifice is love, love is true happiness. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus, proved that concept. He loved, He sacrificed, and in His emptiness, He gave us His Joy. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Philippians 2:1-4 , which says, "Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. I think those verses sum it up nicely. We are to live Christ-like, in faith, accepting His Love, His Sacrifice, and living by His Spirit in pouring ourselves out to fill others up, then we will have His Joy, not worldly happiness, but His Joy.

I have been thinking a lot about happiness and the secret to life. It occurred to me that we need a whole new outlook, that we've been going at it from the wrong direction. Instead of living for the pursuit of happiness, we should live for the pursuit of emptiness.