Things That Matter Most . . . No. 1

THE MEANING OF TRUE HAPPINESS

Only a few things have universal application, but the desire for happiness is presumably one of them. It seems safe to say that all men desire happiness, even when they differ broadly as to what it means to be happy. Perhaps the desire is natural, being as instinctive as self-preservation. Surely there are many more people who refer to happiness as their life’s goal than have any real understanding of the nature of happiness. One would be hard put to go out into the world to find someone who does not want to be happy, but it would be equally difficult to find someone who has a clear understanding as to what he means by the term. It is shrouded with vagueness.

In reply to my question as to what happiness is, one person said that it is having everything one desires, which is more definitive than most answers you will get. Having everything that one desires! We would suppose that if that would not make a man happy, then he just cannot be made happy. And yet there have been many miserable people that have had everything they desired. So there may be an important relationship between what one desires and his being happy. Thus in the title of this essay we imply a distinction between true and false happiness. Many there are who think they are happy who are not really happy. This is true of many things: people think themselves well when they are diseased or as educated when they are ignorant.

What Is Happiness?

The common view is that happiness is a kind of pleasant feeling about life’s experiences, whether love, work or play. It is the composite of many pleasures, including good health, prosperity, and a life absent of tragedy. Webster defines it as “a state of well-being and pleasurable satisfaction; bliss”.

These ideas of happiness raise questions about what pleasure means. Jesus is referred to in prophecy as “a Man of sorrows,” and His life would hardly be viewed as a life of pleasure, and yet we think of His life as the very essence of happiness, in spite of all the suffering He endured and the tragedy He experienced. Prison or the rack can hardly be thought of as pleasant, but might a man who is subjected to such pain be happy nonetheless. So if we define happiness in terms of pleasure we have to keep kinds of pleasure in mind.

Sigmund Freud put his psychoanalytic mind to the task of explaining happiness, and he concluded that the opposite of happiness is not tragedy but neurosis. Happiness is therefore peace of mind. He sees the happy person as one who masters his inner conflicts and is well-adjusted to his environment. This view will allow for pain and tragedy, but shows that happiness involves a quality of soul that knows how to cope with hardship.

If the Greeks had a word for everything else, we can be sure that they had one for happiness. In fact they had several, for happiness was considered the summum bonum of life, and the great philosophers dedicated their lives to the study of what makes life good. Plato defines happiness as spiritual well-being, as harmony in the soul, and as inner peace. The happy man is the just man, Plato points out, and justice refers to the well-ordered life. To live justly is to live harmoniously, with one’s mind, body and soul in proper balance, and this is happiness.

Aristotle sees happiness as the only intrinsic good. Whether you name love, duty, courage, honesty, beauty or whatever, he would say things are all unto happiness. His word for it would best be translated self-realization. As a man fulfills his potential, something like an acorn becomes an oak, he is happy. It is the virtuous man that is happy, in other words, and by virtue Aristotle means proper function. A knife has virtue if it cuts; a tree has virtue if it bears fruit. So a man is virtuous if he is reasonable and otherwise behaves as a man is suppose to, according to his nature.

It was our of the context of this kind of thinking that gave us the word we translate sin. To the Greeks it meant “missing the mark,” such as the archer does when his arrow misses the target. It is thus the misdirected life that is sinful, a life that does not move toward fulfillment. The Christian sees sin as that which moves a man off the course set for him by the will of God. We may be, therefore, close to the meaning of happiness when we associate it with the fulfillment of our potential according to God’s will. Happiness (hitting the mark) and sin (missing the mark) may come close to being opposites.

While Aristotle insists that man needs at least a minimum of material wealth to be happy, the Greeks generally stress the internal aspects of man as that which makes for happiness. They thus prepared the soil for the Christian teaching on the subject. Socrates was the first to talk about “nurturing the soul” in order to be happy. He spoke of death as an experience to be desired, for then one could be with God and enjoy an even greater happiness. Plato writes that “a pattern is laid up in heaven” for the good life, and for this reason the pleasures of the mind are much more important than those of the flesh. The man, therefore, who injures others for personal gain is miserable, while he who chooses to suffer wrong rather than commit wrong is happy. Thus the Greeks see the happy man as virtuous, disciplined, reasonable, and one who is motivated by high ideals.

Building on these Greek concepts, John Stuart Mill expresses his happiness theory in terms of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number,” and he believes this is motivated by “a sense of humanity” within us all. We all want to be happy ourselves, and we have the noble impulse to make others happy. So the good life consists in creating as much happiness as possible for as many people as possible, including one’s self. And Mill is distinctly Christian in his thinking when he observes that a man should choose to sacrifice his own well-being in order to bring an abundance of happiness to many others. This is what Jesus did, and it is the responsibility of all Christians. Mill’s point is that pleasure or happiness is the justifiable goal for man; it is that for which all humanity should be striving. A Christian should seek to generate as much happiness in this world as possible, and eventually even greater bliss in heaven, both for himself and for others. But in any situation in which his own happiness conflicts with the happiness of many, he must yield to “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.” Thus we find Paul saying of his Jewish brethren: “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race.” (Rom. 9:2-3)

There is a blessed contradiction in all this, for as one forfeits his own well-being for the good of others he discovers the highest happiness. “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matt. 10:39) Is not Jesus saying that if one is willing to be “unhappy” so that others might be happy that that man finds an even higher happiness? We put “unhappy” in quotation marks, for he is not really unhappy in doing what he believes God wants him to do, though he may suffer pain and hardship.

This gets at the nature of true happiness. Jesus was truly happy even on the cross, for He had that peace of mind that can come only through a will that is completely surrendered to God. Even amidst severe pain and privation one may enjoy pleasures of soul. Ordinarily we do not think of a man being happy when rocks are being thrown at him, and yet it is possible that Stephen’s happiest experience on earth was when he “gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55) , despite the stones.

We must conclude, therefore, that true happiness is related to one’s personal communion with God. One may be “happy” in a materialistic sense in that “he has everything he wants,” and yet not be in communion with God. But we have to say that such a one does not want the things he ought to want. He is ignorant of the things that matter most. If he would look deep inside himself he would discover unfulfilled desires that only a turning to God can satisfy. The happy life is the transformed life, one made into the likeness of Christ by the grace of God. Happiness is the quiet joy of a surrendered life. It is the satisfaction that all is well between God and self.

Ingredients of Happiness

What is the essence of happiness—the one ingredient without which one cannot be happy? Hardly any term will serve to answer this as does selflessness. One of the most striking descriptions of our Lord tells us that “Christ did not please himself . . .” (Heb. 13:3) In this context we have the prescription for happiness: “Let us each please his neighbor for his good, to edify him, and not to please ourselves.”

The Christian is to see selflessness as more than the noble effort of putting God first, others second, and ourselves last. We can run right smack into a mess of pride with this kind of thinking. To the measure that we become truly selfless we do not count at all, whether first, second or last. We will not even think in those terms. The self becomes unmindful of where it stands, first or last, for a consciousness of any position of self savors of pride. Our Lord did not merely put others before Himself, for He did not consider Himself at all.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9)

“Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a think to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:5-8)

He was rich, but chose to become poor! Though in heavenly glory, He emptied Himself! Is this not the way of real happiness? And so Paul urges: “Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves.” (Phil. 2:3)

Notice that language: count others better than yourself! He is really saying, Forget self! or perhaps, Lose yourself in service to others! We cannot achieve such a standard on our own. It is not a matter of self-discipline. It calls for a transformation of life, a new birth. It demands the death of the old self within us. It is the kind of selflessness Paul speaks of in Gal. 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

“For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:3) This is the selflessness that makes for real happiness. It is a happiness that is not directly sought. It is Christ that we seek. His we are and Him we serve, as Paul puts it. We are not trying to achieve happiness. Rather we hide our lives in God by forgetting self. The happiest people are those who are not particularly aware of happiness itself. They simply do not give themselves enough thought to consider whether they are happy.

Happiness is like humility in this regard. Humility is not something you work hard to achieve. The humble person would never say, “Well, I’ve had a pretty good day today in being humble. Maybe I can be even more humble tomorrow.” Nor would he be like the Trappist monk that described his Order’s strongest point by commenting: “We are known for our humility.” A conscious humility is pride. In the same way the happiest people are not those with a “Be Happy Today” program going. They are busy serving, too busy to be concerned even about their own happiness. They are, of course, happy, the happiest of all people, but it was not attained through conscious effort. Again the Lord’s assuring promise: “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Everyone has his own idea about what makes people happy. Some say money, others say friends. Some emphasize health, others education. Surely all such values are ingredients in varying degrees for the good life. But it is Cicero’s statement that intrigues me: “It is character, not circumstance, that makes one happy.” Maybe that is an overstatement, for it does seem that a modicum of favorable circumstance is necessary to happiness. It is understandable that a man is not happy when unemployed, sick, or hungry—or dying on a field of battle. Yet as a Christian he can be happy, even in travail. We have to concede, however, that it is a rare exception when a man is happy in dire circumstance. But Cicero’s statement is pointing to the right ingredients when he says character is what makes people happy. And he is very Christian in this emphasis, for this is precisely Jesus’ point in the beatitudes He gave. That is what blessed means; it means happy. In giving them Jesus was instructing regarding character.

“Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This blessing of Jesus has in it a whole attitude toward life. It searches a man’s character. It is saying that the way to power is through realizing one’s helplessness, and the way to victory is through the admission of defeat. It also shows that wealth does not consist in the possession of things. It is saying that happiness in this world and in eternity comes through a humble acceptance of God’s will in one’s life.

“Happy are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” The story is told of a great musician who was listening to a talented young singer, who had a beautiful voice but had just missed greatness. “She will be great,” said the old master, “when something happens to break her heart.” Robert Frost was saying something similar when he observed that the heart of a poet must break before he writes great poetry. As paradoxical as it appears, our Lord is relating sorrow to bliss, that there can be no true bliss without mourning. The old Arab proverb says it this way: “All sunshine makes a desert.” Perhaps our Lord is telling us that heavenly bliss comes to those who sorrow over the predicament of humanity with all its sin and suffering. It may be proper for a Christian to be detached from things, but never from people. He cannot have the passivity of a Stoic, but the kind of spirit that rejoices with those that rejoice and weeps with those that weep. It is the man who, like his Lord, is “moved with compassion” in the presence of a troubled world that will enjoy eternal bliss.

“Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Meekness is a badly understood term in our culture, and very few would think of it as an ingredient for happiness. Nietzsche called it “a slave morality,” insisting that meekness is nothing but weakness. But the poet Browning had deeper insight, for he could see strength and gentleness combined. It is good to have a giant’s strength, he pointed out, but not good to use it like a giant. Jesus is referring to the God-controlled man as the happy man. Nietzsche’s fallacy is that he saw power as an end in itself, not as a means to something greater. Jesus too speaks of power. He would say with Bacon that knowledge is power. So is money. So is fame and position. But the happy man, Jesus is saying, is the man who lets God so control his life that all his capacities for power are sublimated by love and service to others.

So with all the beatitudes. They relate character to happiness, just like old Cicero did. “Happy are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled,” is referring to the bliss of the starving soul. The man who feels no real need before God will never be happy. He is too full of self.

Obstacles to Happiness

From our conclusions thus far we are obligated to point to selfishness as the most serious obstacle to a happy life. But there are, of course, other obstacles, some of which no doubt stand in the way even when selfishness does not. Ignorance for instance. Surely we are morally obligated to be informed and intelligent, and when we spurn such a duty the penalty is unhappiness in one form or another. Plato was not far wrong in equating knowledge with virtue. While ignorance is often excusable, it nonetheless takes its toll. Wilful ignorance is terribly wrong. That ignorance is bliss is one of the great lies of the ages. It is the same lie that teaches us not to be bothered with racial and social outcasts amidst all their poverty and ignorance since “they are happier than we are.” How can an ignorant man be happy when it is so contrary to nature? God made him to think and to know and to solve problems and to be challenged by ideas. Keep him in ignorance so he will be happy? Ridiculous! God wants him to be educated, and the better educated he is the greater his capacity for happiness. While it is true that one might get the wrong kind of education, no one can ever become too well educated. We do, of course, have reference to the cultivation of the mind and soul rather than academic degrees or years in school.

A man’s chances for happiness may also be hurt by ambition and jealousy. King Saul’s jealousy of David enslaved him. Despair and neurosis was the reward, whereas he otherwise had such a great potential for happiness. Shakespeare’s Macbeth was once tied in love and singleness of purpose to his wife; he was brave, noble, imaginative. Happiness was his to have, but he was ruined by reckless ambition, an ambition that did not stop even with murder. He illustrates how tragedy is the opposite of happiness. Surely having what one desires has something to do with being happy, but so much depends on what one desires and how much he desires it. Ambition can blind one and even pervert his imagination, as it did to Macbeth.

Buddhism makes a good point in identifying unhappiness as the universal problem of life, and in recognizing “selfish craving” as the cause of the misery in the world. The purpose of its “Eightfold Path” is to show man how to escape from unbridled desire. The eight steps are right understanding, right purpose, right speech, right conduct, right vocation, right effort, right alertness, right concentration.

A noble list of ingredients for happiness to be sure. The Christian would insist on no less, but he would urge that the Christ walk with us upon the path. Not only because it would be lonely without Him, but because there can be no happiness without Him.—the Editor

Thou shalt seek out every day the company of the saints, to be refreshed by their words.—Didache 4:2