Specifications of Happiness – Sunday, July 26, 1942
Perhaps the time has come again to remind ourselves that things are not important as our attitude toward them. It is time to remind ourselves of this because material comforts promise to be less of a factor in our lives in the immediate future than they have been in the past.
It is possible for men and women to put themselves in a frame of mind—and many of them do—where they know they can’t be happy unless all things pertaining to their material world come up to certain arbitrary specifications—the house they live in, the street on which it stands, the car they drive, the clothes they wear, the pleasures they have set their hearts upon. We can readily make ourselves unhappy by setting our hearts upon things which are not essential to happiness.
Men were essentially happy when they were born into this world. Most of them are happy in the years of their youth, with only small things to make them so. It is not until we ourselves complicate our own lives or until we let someone else complicate them for us—until we become victims of our environment—victims of false standards, of wrong thinking—that we find great unhappiness.
It might be well to sit down soberly and confront ourselves with this reality: Our pioneer and pilgrim forefathers, and uncounted millions of other men and women in this generation and generations past, have been exceedingly happy without the material things which we think are essential to our happiness. There come pertinently to mind these words from First Timothy: “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” (1st Timothy 6:6-7) It would seem these days that the superstructure that complicates our lives is being recognized for what it is, and that the non-essentials that have confused and embarrassed and warped our living, are no longer the most important things in our thoughts. “Seek not for riches but for wisdom . . . and then shall you be made rich. Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich.” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:7) It would seem that the simple has become profound again; the commonplace has become precious, and another generation begins to learn that our lives can be happy without the material encumbrances we have built around us, if there are left to us freedom, straight thinking, clear objectives-if we have the assurance that we are walking steadfastly toward a worthwhile ultimate destination.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, July 26, 1942, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright-1942.
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July 26, 1942
Broadcast Number 0,675