- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I’ve been realizing recently that the idea of being required or expected to sacrifice enjoyable things now in order to have more enjoyment in eternity is actually false. Not to say you can do whatever feels good, but it comes more out of God wanting us to have enjoyable lives, not just enjoyable afterlives. There is the scripture about the natural man being ‘carnal, sensual, and devilish’ and being the ‘enemy of God’ which seems to say otherwise, but I think it might be out of context, false, or incomplete. Pleasure is not inherently evil. Physical things are not inherently evil. Stimulating the senses is not inherently evil. But there is this guilt by association with those things.
It’s okay to have pleasure. There are a few boundaries, of course, but there is nothing wrong with it. I blame the Puritans.
Perhaps the ‘natural man’ isn’t the best term for it. It’s essentially a representation of the capacity for evil within us stated in a way that suggests it is typically the easier, more ‘natural’ course of action. But I believe people are essentially good and merely have the capacity to do great evil only if they so choose it. Rationality isn’t the default mode of humanity, but goodness is. It’s an imperfect goodness, but it’s goodness nonetheless. Most often, when people do bad things, they do it with good intentions (and a false understanding) in mind.
This life is very much a part of the eternities. You are already living an eternal life. Right now. That helps me put the whole “when do I want to be happy” into perspective.
nibbler wrote:
This life is very much a part of the eternities. You are already living an eternal life. Right now.That helps me put the whole “when do I want to be happy” into perspective.
Especially during some 3 hours blocks! OK, they just SEEM like an eternity.
nibbler wrote:This life is very much a part of the eternities. You are already living an eternal life. Right now.
Love it. Especially if we take into consideration the principle that we take all our experiences and intelligence(s) with us – we’re already eternal, and building towards what will always be us. It’s like asking when do I learn math: when I learn subtraction and addition or when I learn differential equations? It’s all math.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
We segment too many things that never were meant to be torn assunder. Our view of eternity is MUCH closer to reincarnation than it is to mainstream Christian theology. I am beyond grateful for that.
Beefster wrote:
I’ve been realizing recently that the idea of being required or expected to sacrifice enjoyable things now in order to have more enjoyment in eternity is actually false. Not to say you can do whatever feels good, but it comes more out of God wanting us to have enjoyable lives, not just enjoyable afterlives.Precisely!
I came to this realization myself a few years ago. After a traumatic church experience involving members and leaders alike, I went into clinical depression and it affected my health. At that time, it hit me like a ton of bricks that we are here to be happy. And the “gospel of happiness” wasn’t cutting it.
People I knew were telling me “you’re not a happy person”. And I realized that church stuff was at the root of my misery much of the time. I was happy in my job, happy in my hobbies, but get church involved and it meant drudgery, working in my areas of weakness, guilt, and finally ostracization and harsh treatment.
I am MUCH happier now that I am off the traditional church model. MUCH happier. I find community service far more fulfilling and enduring. I can make an impact more easily, and the impact will often last for years and years and years and be visible to me. I am unfettered by rules that restrict how I go about getting results. I am learning and doing new things all the time. A side benefit is that it helps my career and expands my abilities far more than the programmed service in the church ever did. There are still nasty things to put up with from others — I have stories, but for some reason they are easier to handle when the deliverers of such treatment have no professed religious values in the context of our church.
And that is our object and design of our existence – happiness. Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have joy.
So, rather than using what leaders say should make you happy, or what you should do with your time, think about what YOU think will make you happy. Claim the right to worship God by the dictates of your own conscience. This puts a lot of onus on you to still apply the principles of kindness, honesty, integrity, etcetera, but it’s a great criterion for deciding what to do or believe.
At about the time I had this realization. there was a book that became popular –
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
The author has you start your decluttering and organizing of your home by taking all your clothes, for example, putting them in a pile and then touching each one. You ask — does this bring me joy? If it doesn’t discard it. It if does, keep it.
I believe a person’s decisions and life should be aligned with the goal of being happy. That is my test of what to include and what not to include in my life. So keep at it. Make sure you are focusing on wholesome joy, as the scriptures say that even people sin eventually grow to love it. Focus on the good stuff that brings peace and lasting joy. And that doesn’t necessarily mean all the stuff the church tells you brings joy. You can’t paint every person with the same brush. We are all different colors.
Mormonism rejects the monastic tradition (the bundle of ideas that suggest that to be removed from the world and even your bodily desires is the higher path of godliness). Mormonism does not start with the general supposition that mankind is inherently flawed and sinful. We teach that we are divine children (gods in embryo) that are practicing for our eternal joys and responsibilities.
Mormonism teaches that this potential is not to be reached alone. We are to practice our religion in the living classrooms of our communities and our homes. We believe that the sociality that exists here will exist in heaven. We also believe that marriage and the process of becoming “one” with another person is intrinsically linked to exaltation.
For many this means that the “natural affection” (which, to belabor the point, comes naturally) is the root of both earthly and eternal happiness. I understand that this is more challenging for the introverts.
A good portion of the BoM is much closer to conventional 19th century Christianity than we are now. Our theology has evolved.
I am unsure if “happiness” is a thing to grasp now, or in the eternities. The founding fathers said we have a right to the pursuit of happiness…not happiness itself.
The pursuit is what we do today, choices we make to seek after it…always seeking the fleeting moments where we
feelhappy, only to have them intermittently interrupted with feelings of pain, sorrow, sickness, and injustice, etc. We fight for happiness each day. We pursue it. We try to minimize suffering and maximize joy and good things. But it is a false notion to say we have or own never ending happiness and zero suffering…only a perfect enlightened person could have such and we are all far from perfect. If that is celestial perfection like God…that is a pursuit for the ages and won’t happen in this life (ever ever ever).
For some, that pursuit of happiness will including sacrificing things now for a feeling of peace and a faith that those sacrifices allow for greater opportunities of happiness in the future. Investment now and yield in the future, based faith. The trick is to find what to invest in, and what to pass on investing. We can’t invest in everything and don’t want to…and we don’t have the capacity…so we prioritize (hence, =cafeteria style).
Sacrifice requires faith in something. I choose not go out to eat dinner every night because I pursue healthy habits and save money for greater things in the future and find cooking and eating leftovers is a sacrifice of time and resources worthwhile even if I need to eat now, there are many ways to choose to do that, sacrificing some things now for a benefit I have faith in…and that lifestyle makes me a happier person (not a person who has attained happiness, but a pursuit towards it). It is some choices that put me on a path. As things become manifest, I alter my choices as I learn.
Others may take the same formula I used and also find it makes them as happy and we share that view (or not), or said another way…what I do may or may not lead to others having fewer moments of happiness. So the formula I use to pursue happiness can vary from others’ path to happiness. (Weight watchers has a program that works for many people…but I don’t find it is worth the investment for me…and I choose differently even if pursuing the same goals to eat and be healthy).
If you are feeling less happiness on a regular basis with living some church principles, you can analyze it and determine what to change, shed, or renew. What some people may have been doing was working in a Stage 3 mindset of faith that they just trusted authority when promised true happiness. Some things were defined as sin or blessings for the community to define things. This may have led to some happiness but over time did not feel was delivering the reward that was promised often enough compared to the suffering, causing Stage 4 in Folwer’s stages. As that faith develops, people move into Stage 5 faith by grasping the things that they have faith in that have true meaning to them, ignore the things others say work for them, and allow for multiple paths as we all pursue happiness adapting principles into our lives that truly work and truly lead to greater moments of happiness for us.
In doing so, you can live in the moment, in the present, with feelings of happiness and feelings of suffering together as all part of how things are supposed to be, and set yourself up for wise choices that lead to more happiness and less suffering in the future.
These come by living true gospel principles for the right reasons. We all determine that for ourselves, and often return to see that the church rules and sacrifices we are called to make are things that
canhelp us when we see them properly, not just blind obedience, but having faith in a purpose behind it. Or, we can shed them, and pursue happiness in ways others may not. We will learn as we go, find what constitutes sin for us, repent and change and learn, and adjust as we pursue happiness along our path. It will not be “no church sacrifice will ever matter” and it will not be “all church sacrifice is a must” … it will be somewhere in between where you find you fit nicely and have peace and joy and things of the spirit. And that leads you closer on your pursuit to having more feelings of happiness as you go.
Here is a thought for today on happiness:
Quote:Never put the key to happiness in someone else’s pocket.
It is wise to listen to others who have good ideas. I think we can learn to own our own religion…and find the things we are ready to adopt into our lives, and invest wisely, and allow ourselves to not sacrifice too much just to please others.
But I agree with the premise that we should be seeking happiness throughout life, including today, as we weigh all our choices.
Heber13 wrote:
I am unsure if “happiness” is a thing to grasp now, or in the eternities.The founding fathers said we have a right to the pursuit of happiness…not happiness itself.
It’s the object and design of our “existence”. We exist now. We should be happy — NOW.
The research shows that 50% of our happiness is genetic. 10% is due to circumstances, and the remaining 40% is up to us.
A Stanford Researcher has synthesized a lot of the research on twins, and happiness is clearly something achieveable by most people NOW.
Here is her book, and excellent read:
She also has a site called Life Reimagined where you can take a free course in how to be happy. It involves posting reflections on the principles she shares in her lessons. They are short, with a video from her, and then an activity. I got a lot out of it.
Happiness is for now. Today. Sure we sometimes forgo immediate “pleasure” or happiness for a better future, but I believe that when such sacrifice affects our health, or makes us miserable, or plunges us into depression, it’s time for a new model.
SD
SilentDawning wrote:
Heber13 wrote:
…[stuff deleted]…Here is her book, and excellent read:
She also has a site called Life Reimagined where you can take a free course in how to be happy. It involves posting reflections on the principles she shares in her lessons. They are short, with a video from her, and then an activity. I got a lot out of it.
…[stuff deleted]…
I took this video course. It is quite good.
SilentDawning wrote:
Happiness is for now. Today. Sure we sometimes forgo immediate “pleasure” or happiness for a better future, but I believe that when such sacrifice affects our health, or makes us miserable, or plunges us into depression, it’s time for a new model.
I agree with this. On the one hand, sacrifice is almost always necessary to get what will make us truly happy. Some of the happiest people are those who have very little, and “sacrifice” all they are and have to bless others. I think the English language once again falls short in this area. The Greeks have a word, “Eudaimonia”, which is the happiness which comes from deep fulfillment. Contrast with pleasure, which is often short term and quickly forgotten. Pleasure can be wonderful on occasion, depending on the type, and can definitely help bring us to “Eudaimonia”. But there is a massive distinction between the good pleasure, and the pleasure which ruins “Eudaimonia”. Pleasure can too affect our health, make us miserable, and pludge us into depression. Remember the tipper, from “the Little Prince”:
Quote:
“What are you doing there?” he said to the tippler, whom he found settled down in silence before a collection of empty bottles and also a collection of full bottles.“I am drinking,” replied the tippler, with a lugubrious air.
“Why are you drinking?” demanded the little prince.
“So that I may forget,” replied the tippler.
“Forget what?” inquired the little prince, who already was sorry for him.
“Forget that I am ashamed,” the tippler confessed, hanging his head.
“Ashamed of what?” insisted the little prince, who wanted to help him.
“Ashamed of drinking!” The tipper brought his speech to an end, and shut himself up in an impregnable silence.
SilentDawning wrote:Happiness is for now. Today. Sure we sometimes forgo immediate “pleasure” or happiness for a better future, but I believe that when such sacrifice affects our health, or makes us miserable, or plunges us into depression, it’s time for a new model.
Well said.:thumbup:
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.