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Quote of the Day: Peale on Happiness
“Happiness will never come if it’s a goal in itself; happiness is a by-product of a commitment to worthy causes.” — Rev. Norman Vincent Peale
Is everybody happy? If not, dedicate yourself to a worthy cause. Go make a family. Get involved in a church. Quit your moping and move your feet.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
How true!
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Love this one, @arahant. I don’t strive for happiness; I hope for overall satisfaction with my life. The things I do, the people I love all provide me with endlessly satisfying moments, and often I’m blessed with joy, too. Whether I hit a bump in the road or have a disappointment, that sense of satisfaction is always there, even though sometimes it’s subtle.
Stellar advice.
Okay, I agree, but must point out that happiness can also derive from low expectations.
Or, at least, contentment.
Tom Lehrer described Norman Vincent Peale as one of the great philosophers in his song It Makes a Fella Proud to be a Soldier.
I would like to suggest another word: joy.
To me, “happiness” is a shallow and fleeting emotion or feeling: Yeah, the sun came out! Darn, it’s raining! My, that apple pie is good! You call that gumbo?! That sort of thing.
Joy is much deeper, more satisfying, and longer-lasting.
The Reverend is on to something, though, about pursuing a worthy cause.
Jesus said (paraphrasing Deuteronomy 6:5-7):
That pretty well encapsulates “worthy causes,” no?
Whereas I maintain that if we judge by willing compliance, Genesis 1:28, deserves the distinction.
Hmmm…
Gen. 1:28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
This command is pre-Fall. Things changed with the Fall: man was doomed to die.
Gen. 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
And,
Gen. 3:22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
I’m not picking a fight, but the Fall changed things…
Sure, but ‘be fruitful and multiply’ is still the most complied-with command, even among non-humans, in fact, all of life. Without this command, everything is different.
I have no argument with the fact that Jesus’s statements are correct for fallen humans. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the fallen nature is what makes it necessary to have explicit commandments. The power of Gen 1:28 is that those that do not comply, cease to be a problem in time. Fallen humans are a problem always.
St. Francis was asked by his friars what was meant by “perfect joy.” He told them to imagine they were struggling up a mountain at night, in a snowstorm, barefoot, and they saw a house up ahead. Stumbling bloody-footed through the snow, they come to the door and pound on it, begging to be let in. The household refuses, shouting abuse and pouring filth on their heads. This, said the saint, should not dampen their spirits because they should retain joy in their hearts, which is not a function of transient circumstances but comes from the sure knowledge of Christ’s redemption.
Wonderful quote, @arahant. Needed that reminder.
I think of happiness as an emotion; contentment as a learned state of being. We work and hope for the best, and choose each day to be content. Make consistently bad choices, and it’s “Hello, Discontent, my old friend” to paraphrase Simon & Garfunkel. (I should add that contentment in my own life journey is increased by relationship with my Maker :-)
How much of contentment is expectations…
Do I look for denunciations or felicitations
Aim too low and I’ll always settle
Never feel the strength of testing my own mettle
Yet there’s little peace in always striving
And missing the joy of really thriving
Secret is to find and do the things for which I’m meant*
If my aim is to be truly content
*amazing how far a little elbow grease behind an offered helping hand can go :-)
Oh, you are so right! Mr AZ expects all service people to be on time, for grocery store aisles to be uncrowded, for all drivers to drive the speed limit and use their turn signals. And he is constantly irritated. I am much happier expecting nothing. And when things go right I am delighted.
Happy? Thanks for the ear worm:
The fruitful don’t multiply.
The hippies don’t like talk like that, though.
And their calculus isn’t top notch either.
And we shouldn’t forget God’s slightly modified suggestion for the adders when he talked to that brand of snake:
“?? Hmmm, well, do the best you can.”
@arahant, the yogis talk about bliss (ananda) as being the measure of success in this life. I think it translates well as joy in the specific way that you are using it, though.
There is a mystery from the yogis for this word, ananda: it is said by them to not have an opposite. So, this forces the student to take this as a clue for what is meant by ananda. The mind has trouble with it in that when one mentions happiness, the opposite is always there: unhappiness or sadness or depression and such. If there is a word that has no opposite in this duality-based reality then that in itself is a conundrum — the Zen Buddhists call this a Kōan.
I’m (mostly) content. I’m prone to periods of happiness, which I thank God, through whom service to Him allows me to experience the purest joy. My depression follows periods when I’m mostly in the service of myself.
True for most who do not have a true chemical imbalance.