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JS Smith said that happiness is the “object and design of our existence”. So, my questions: 1. If you were to estimate what percent of the time your hapiness-o-meter is in the “Happy range” within the last year, what would it be, speaking of your life in general?
2. What generates true happiness for you, whether church/gospel related, or not?
“What generates true happiness for you, whether church/gospel related, or not?” Love of the genuine kind, and positive social experiences.
The beauties of nature.
A good book.
Certain classical music (and much less often rock music)
A smile on a baby, the song of a bird (most), the sight of flowers in a meadow.
I know I’m turning “Sound of Music” on y’all at the end there, but these do make me happy.
Family time GOOD Beer “Beer is proof that God loves man.” – Ben Franklin
Sunsets
Fire
Intimacy
Good books
Philosophy and the “experience” of life
I think I am genuinely happy and content 80% of the time. I have been fortunate. I have a great life – work, family, health, financial, marriage, culture, location, education/skills, travel…
….Really my only stress in life IS CHURCH.
1. Most of the time 2. My choice (not to sound arrogant) “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, or a hell out of heaven.” [John Milton] “Choose gratitude” plays a big part.
CHOCOLATE INTIMACY
BEING UNDERSTOOD,
GOOD FRIENDS/SOCIALIZATION
SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES
GOOD HEALTH
FRESH FLOWERS, ESPECIALLY ROSES
, AND DID I SAY CHOCOLATE-DARK-SEMI-SWEET
On my mission I used to give a survey (Called What Brings happiness) with these questions:
1 ARE YOU HAPPY?
Why? or why not?
2. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY
GIVES YOU THE GREATEST
JOY? Why does that give you the
greatest joy?
3. IS MATERIAL SUCCESS
NECESSARY FOR YOU TO BE
HAPPY? (How much? Is it
possible to be rich and still unhappy?
4. IS SELF-RESPECT NECESSARY
TO BE HAPPY? What gives you a
feeling of self-respect? Is living up to
your standards or beliefs a part of your
answer?
5. HAVE YOU EVER SET CHARACTER ,
SELF- IMPROVEMENT, GOALS
FOR YOURSELF? Did you have success
in any area? Did that bring an element of
happiness?
6. IS A FAITH IN GOD NECESSARY
FOR YOU TO BE HAPPY? Does this
faith have to be in connection with a church
or organized religion? Can a church help
nourish or support your faith?
7. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS THE
PURPOSE OF LIFE?
What was so interesting about this survey was when we asked why they happy, they usually said because they have a good family. The second question of what brings you the greates joy in life was not always the same answer of family, but things like, “my dog, football, etc. This took place in Austria. Being content with what you have was important being happy too.
1. In general, I am happy about 95% of the time – and I have learned how to overcome the unhappiness in almost all cases or, at the very least, compartmentalize it so I only deal with it when I want to do so. 2. MY life brings me happiness – pretty much every aspect of it. Almost every aspect of my life also brings the possibility of unhappiness.
I have made a conscious effort to learn to be happy internally, so even in “unhappy situations” I generally can be happy – at the very least in a very short time. One study said that good health and sufficient income creates an “absence of unhappiness”. Happiness itself was generated by other things, primarily by good relationships. Personally, I’m strange.
1. If you take the Church out of my life lately, I’m happy about 85% of the time. In some of my TBM phases of my life, when there were no conflicts at Church I was happy almost all the time.
2. What makes me happy is the following:
a) Achieving something challenging. Like building an innovative guitar that is my own design.
b) Teaching something to someone and seeing them become independent of me afterwards with their new-found knowledge.
c) Playing music with my children in a band situation.
d) One quarter as HPGL, my quorum achieved ALL of its goals but one. And this included hard stuff like activating a family and an getting an average of 4 home teaching visits per companionship, two service projects and a well-attended Ward social — and it was achieved without my busy involvement — all through hands-off delegation and clear guidelines. My role was that of a resource-getter and designer. That was VERY satisfying. It was at that point I felt I’d truly learned how to lead.
e) Hitting financial savings and mortgage-reduction targets.
f) Spiritual experiences that fill my soul and mind with peace.
g) Getting a huge insight into the meaning of a scripture that no one has thought of before.
h) Teaching a group of people and feeling the room awash in the Spirit.
i) Completing a certification/degree/course of study.
j) Affirmation in my work that I’m needed and do a good job.
k) Those moments when everyone gets along in the household and the family is like a “little bit of heaven”. Seeing my kids work together and care for each other.
Unfortunately, since I have a high achievement motivation, I find Church service a mixed bag. Probably because of the fact that because its volunteer, many initiatives die on the table. It’s always a work in progress, and it’s characterized by long periods of striving with little tangible results, dotted with flashes of success and inpiration.
If you’re involved in Church service, does it make you happy? Why or why not?
Yes SD, your last comment reminded me of something I heard one time: To be happy a person needs 3 things –
1) Someone to love
2) Something to do
3) Something to look forward to.
SilentDawning wrote:If you’re involved in Church service, does it make you happy? Why or why not?
No.
Usually doing things like attending church, HT, fulfilling callings, meetings outside of meetings, cleaning the building, teaching etc are not going to make me happy. Not anymore. It’s all seems so “fake” to me now. Perhaps I will get back there someday, but now I have to find other avenues to “serve” in the community to find the peace I look for.
One thing that helped me was moving to a new Ward when my job warranted it. An unintended biproduct was a renewed interest in Church. I know that isn’t always practical, and is an extreme measure to take simply for Church happiness. But when my relationships with others become like once-freshly fallen snow that has gotten brown and dirty, and life has taken me to another Ward, the whole experience of a fresh start has renewed my happiness several times at Church.
And this is in spite of permanent concerns about aspects of Church culture. It’s like getting baptized again almost — a time for fresh commitments and attempts at attitude change and making a different contribution than I have in the past.
I think part of what makes me personally unhappy at Church is how I taint my perceived worth and relationships when I go public with things I’m not happy about. A fresh start pushes the delete button on all the mistakes I made in my previous Ward.
That’s not for everyone, but is something that has boosted my happiness in the past. I know some will argue that it’s an external source of happiness, and that all this love and joy about Church should be generated internally, but sometimes, a clean break can kick-start a change in perspective.
Next time I move I’m going to use it as an opportunity to reframe my attitudes toward callings in the Church; hopefully with the passage of time the memory of recent experiences will have dulled significantly.
What makes you happy? Fruity drinks with an umbrella, long walks on the beach, and getting caught out in the rain.
No wait! I didn’t say that out loud did I?
No. I am happy when I am hunting grizzly bears, fixing tractors, wrestling alligators, and spitting on the ground! rawr! *SPIT*
This is a good example of Brian channeling his inner Brian! 😆 SilentDawning wrote:This is a good example of Brian channeling his inner Brian!
😆 Yes. And that can produce very odd results that defy logic or the rules of physics.
It’s not quite as dangerous though as the opening up a bacon to bacon time-space continuum, which happens when you take something bacon flavored, and wrap in crispy bacon. The yumminess is too extreme. It can cause you to loop back in time to the point before you ate it, constantly eating more bacon and looping back again.
and that’s a bad thing? Just sayin’. I went for a drive in the country after church. That made me happy. As I think did the kindness of some people in church. I suppose we can remember the bad things sometimes, but not the good, but I’ll try and acknowledge it here.
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