Tag: Happiness

How I Know I’m a Horrible Person

I don’t know about you but I felt great when I woke up this morning.  I felt amazing.  I just felt so comfortable in my own skin–just being me.  I was on top of the world, singing loudly in the shower like I didn’t have a care in the world.

And then I got in my car to drive to work.  I pulled up to a red light and looked to my left.  There, purring like a kitten tiger was a beautiful and expensive sports car.  It was gorgeous–so sleek and shiny.  I gazed longingly at all the fancy tech gadgets and luxury through the tinted windows.  Then the light turned green and that car flashed away like an angry rocket–screaming along with an intoxicatingly powerful roar.

That’s when I noticed the vastly different sound spilling feebly from my own car.  It was more like a death rattle than anything. And then I remembered how my car is about a hundred years old and how one entire panel is rusted, how my window and air conditioning are broken and how I have a tape deck.  A tape deck.  That’s technology from the 80s.  They don’t even make tapes anymore!

And suddenly, I’m not feeling so great about myself.  I’m not so comfortable in my own skin.  I’m not on top of the world in fact I’m feeling rather under it.  I start to feel sort of worthless and disgruntled.  I pound on my decrepit steering wheel.  Why can’t I have a car like that?  Why do I always have to drive around in a piece of junk car?  My life sucks.

It’s then that I pull up to the next stop light.  I look to my left and I see this car–an absolute disaster of an automobile.  A condescending chuckle erupts out of me.  Oh my!  What a piece of junk.  WOW do I feel bad for the person who drives that car.  I would hate myself.  There is no way I would drive that car.  How embarrassing.  I wouldn’t be caught dead in that thing.

And suddenly, I feel pretty good about myself.  I’m feeling pretty comfortable in my own skin.   I’m glad I ‘m not that guy.  His life must suck.

Sound familiar?  Maybe it isn’t cars but I bet you’ve done the same thing about clothes, your house or grades.  I might not be rich but at least I don’t live there!

 

AM I OK?

What are we doing in these moments of comparison?  Why do we do this?  I think it’s because lodged deep within each of us is a voice telling us that we aren’t OK.  There is a voice, sometimes quiet and sometimes screaming that tells us that we aren’t valuable.  And so, we look around at the people around us and ask, “Am I OK?”  When I look at his car I feel terrible.  When I look at her jeans I feel great!  And why, when something bad happens to him do I secretly celebrate?  This is when I know there is something horribly wrong with me.  There is a part of me deep inside that is broken.

This voice reflects the brokenness inside of us and I believe it reflects a broken relationship between us and our creator.  A toxicity pervades our minds and relationships.

This might sound strange but I find this brokenness in all of us to be one of the most compelling arguments for Christianity.  I don’t believe that any other worldview explains as clearly why we envy, compare ourselves to other people and why we constantly battle a little voice in our heads that tells us we are terrible people.  We’re broken people in need of repair.  There’s no self-help or enlightened path that can fix this.

 

image credited to Dan Iggers via Flickr

What If God Doesn’t Want You To Be Happy?

Today I’m guest posting on Ada Bible Church’s blog, Sabea.  If you’ve never been, you should check it out.  There are a lot of great posts .

Here’s an excerpt from my post:

What if God doesn’t want you to be happy?  Wait, what?  No seriously, what if God’s goal in your life isn’t your happiness?  What if God is after something deeper and more meaningful?

Our culture is obsessed with happiness.  Think about advertising slogans.  “Have it your way,”  “Open Happiness,” “The Happiest Place on Earth,” and of course, the McDonald’s “Happy Meal” (which often ends in bitterness when my kids don’t get the toy they want). 

Most people’s goal in life is to be happy.  We date and eventually marry people because they make us happy.  We pursue sports, vacations, relationships, and vocations that make us happy.  We buy things because they make us feel good.  And yet, when we look around, most people aren’t actually happy.

For as hard as we try, it isn’t working.

Happiness is a slippery thing.  It’s elusive and shifty.  It constantly moves and morphs.  A person, thing, or job that used to make us happy doesn’t anymore.  And when we don’t feel happy we react and chase after something or someone we believe will make us happy.  We leave the relationship or quit the job.  Very few of us are willing to stay in a situation where we don’t experience the emotions associated with happiness.  We run.

Click here to read the rest of the post.

Why Happiness Doesn’t Make You Happy

We are seriously confused about happiness.  On the one hand, we have more opportunity for happiness in our society than every before.  For the most part, we can have anything we want almost anytime that we want.  And yet, our culture is seriously unhappy and discontent.  We’re never satisfied or content–with what we have, with our relationships, with achievement, with sex, basically anything.

It’s not just adults either, over the last decade that I’ve been involved in student ministry, I’ve noticed a sharp increase in students who are either depressed or very unhappy.  What’s the deal?  How can we be so unhappy when we have everything we could want or need?

I think it is because we fundamentally misunderstand happiness.  Popular psychology argues that happiness is attained when we get or achieve what we want.  Be who you want to be.  Get what you want.  Do what you want.  When you release yourself from pressures to conform and do your thing, then you’ll be happy.  Personally, I think this is a misunderstanding of human nature.  As I understand the Bible,I don’t think we shouldn’t trust our desires.

Two ancient verses from the Old Testament describe what I’m talking about:

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. (Proverbs 16:25)

Here’s a very basic interpretation:  Your heart is a liar and often when something seems very right it is very wrong.  In other words, contrary to popular belief, you can’t trust your gut and you shouldn’t follow your heart.  To put it bluntly, what you think will make you happy will often leave you empty or worse, break your heart.

Happiness is elusive because it moves.  Let me explain.  The year was 2002, the Xbox had just come out and I simply had to have one.  My Playstation had become utterly worthless to me.  So, I bought the Xbox and it was amazing.  Then, in 2005, Microsoft released the Xbox 360 and with one quick press announcement, my Xbox was dead to me.  I couldn’t play games on that worthless old piece of outdated technology.  I simply had to have the 360.  So, I went out and bought one and it was amazing.  And now, what will be released in a few short months?  The Xbox One.  And when I see my friends playing on it my 360 will become utterly worthless to me.

What I experienced with the Xbox applies to relationships, achievement, sex and anything else.  The girl I couldn’t break up with fast enough back in 10th grade was the same girl I just had to have 3 months earlier.  Happiness is elusive because it moves.

Here’s the truth:  constantly trying to keep yourself happy will never lead to true happiness.  You will experience flashes of happiness but then it will move.  You’ll constantly be chasing something you’ll never actually achieve.

Happiness isn’t really what you’re after anyway.  What you want is meaning.  You want to live a life that is meaningful.  Living a meaningful life unlocks joy.  Unlike happiness, joy doesn’t move because it isn’t dependent on external circumstances.

The Apostle Paul used the word “joy” constantly and he lived a pretty rough life.  He was beaten, imprisoned, stoned (from rocks not plants), shipwrecked and eventually murdered because he was a Jesus follower.  Yet, in the midst of all this pain he repeatedly wrote of being filled with joy.  How is this possible?

Paul experienced joy because he knew that he was desperately loved by his Creator and Savior.  He felt joy in the midst of abuse and pain because he knew that he was pouring his life out for something that really mattered–for something deeply meaningful.

Joy is possible when you have nothing, when you are rejected, when you are hurt and even when you are dying.  Joy is far superior to happiness.  Stop living for happiness because happiness won’t make you happy.  Give your life to something meaningful.