Happiness is a Serious Problem

"... that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."


"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence and considered by some as part of one of the most well crafted, influential sentences in the history of the English language.

I've studied "happiness" and I too have found it to be a serious matter.
I believe that happiness is a moral obligation.

Ask a child what it is like to grow up with an unhappy parent. Ask a wife how easy it is to be married to an unhappy husband. Interview a co-worker that spends 40 hours a week around an unhappy colleague. Pursuing happiness makes a difference not only in your own life, but in the lives of the people around you. We owe it to our husbands, wives, children, friends, to be as happy as we can be. This does not mean acting fake or refraining from honest and intimate expressions of our feelings to those closest to us. But it does mean that we owe it to others to work on our own happiness.

There is another reason why happiness is a moral obligation. In general, people act more decently when they are happy. Do you feel more positively disposed toward other people and do you want to treat other people better when you are happy or unhappy?

In some cases with some people, happiness just seems to "happen", but I've discovered that happiness truly is a choice.
I've been through seasons in my life that happiness seemed to come easier. I've also had times of laboring to pursue happiness. I see now that those times of labor taught me the most about happiness.

Unhappiness is easy, but happiness takes work! It takes no courage, effort, or greatness to be unhappy. Anyone can be unhappy. Happiness is a battle to be waged and not a feeling to be awaited.

The notion that happiness must be worked at comes as news to many people. They assume that happiness is a feeling and that this feeling comes as a result of good things happening to them. We therefore have little control over how happy we are, the thinking goes, because we can't control what happens to us. I believe that happiness is largely determined by us!

Since happiness is such a serious problem, I'll spend the next few weeks writing about it. For this week ask yourself the question, "Do I have a moral obligation to the people in my life, to pursue happiness?" If your answer is yes...come back next week and we'll pursue it together.


hap·py
adj. hap·pi·er, hap·pi·est
1. Characterized by good luck; fortunate.
2. Enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy.
3. Being especially well-adapted; felicitous: a happy turn of phrase.
4. Cheerful; willing: happy to help.

Always encouraging you,
Letha