Some Ingredients of Happiness – September 28, 1958
Surely the one thing most sought for in this life is happiness—no matter what we call it, no matter whether we are seeking it in right or wrong ways. Often unhappiness comes from overemphasizing the negative side of situations.
This is easy to do—so easy that we might sometimes suppose that we have much less to make us happy than we have. Life isn’t always easy for any of us. And if for anyone else, it seems to be so, it is only because we don’t know enough about others.
We are all subject to uncertainties and to some adverse circumstances. Furthermore, no matter what we have, it seems that there are always some things we want. But those who have what we want—or what we think we want—are not necessarily happier than we are.
Happiness is not confined to any material set of circumstances. It is not the monopoly of any place or people. Its ingredients, or part of them at least, are faith and work, gratitude, a sincere purpose, a sense of being wanted, and the ability to see the hopeful side.
All these are indispensable elements, but faith and useful willing work would seem to underlie all else—faith in the providence of God, faith in life, and in its everlasting plan and purpose—and work: work not only to satisfy physical wants, but work for the sense of service, and for the sense of accomplishment—work because men are so made that they cannot be as happy without willing work as they can be with it.
The right to work is God-given, and the obligation to work is also, and the necessity for it is in man’s very nature. Now as to the element of comparison, which always enters in: Some whom we think might not have cause, comparatively, to be as happy as some others, are often among the happiest, and among the most grateful—perhaps because their sense of values has been stripped of some of the superficialities, perhaps because they have learned the great blessing of simple essentials.
We clutter our lives with so many unessentials. It all adds up to the fact that we have more reason to be happy than we sometimes suppose, and to realize that this is so, we need only lose some things we have—or see someone who has never had some things we have—and we may well find the contrast convincing, and give gratitude to the Lord God who gave us all, including the opportunity of everlasting life, and counsel and commandments to keep, that “men might have joy.”*
*Revised.
September 28, 1958
Broadcast Number 1,519