I
hate happiness. It is an animal. It blocks pain but only temporarily. The
terrible thing about happiness is that it lies to us. It fills us with emotions
contrary to what we know to be true. “Good” things happen, you feel happy.
Things that make you happy are then treated with idolization, and there is no
need to teach us to pursue what makes us happy. We automatically seek after
these things that give us pleasure. This is the worst part about happiness. It
is addictive. And this addiction drives us to pursue happiness at whatever
cost. Happiness becomes our god, and we kill anything that gets between us.
Some
people know that they cannot feel happy if they truly know what is going on
around them. The world is not really a happy place, so people decide to not
think about it. They adopt the slogan “ignorance is bliss,” and choose not to
think about anything more stressful than the present. The sad thing about
blissful ignorance is that it eventually catches up to you. No matter how
fervently you try to dismiss reality, it is still there, and it is always armed
to the teeth and ready to devour those who treat the Lion that it is like a lamb.
Their life of whatever they call “happiness” is destroyed in a moment of
terrible truth.
Some
people think they are always happy, because they have chosen to put up walls
that protect them from pain. They do not let hurt in, and they call themselves
happy because they do not really feel sad.
The truth is, they do not really feel anything.
These people are not happy. They are perhaps out of everyone the most starved
of happiness, for their walls that block pain also block love and affection,
therefore any happiness they experience is just shallow vapor that manages to
infiltrate their walls. The tiny bit of happiness that is felt goes unnoticed,
for if you do not experience pain, you cannot appreciate its opposite.
Happiness
is an avaricious god, demanding of our time, and deceiving us when we give it.
We desire to be happy, and it becomes our sybaritic lifestyle. We are taught to
go after whatever makes us “happy,” but no one tells us that nothing will keep us happy. Fueled by our desperation
to find something that will eternally sustain us, we enter a downward spiral
but we do not notice, for we are too blinded by our anxiety to find this
illusive “happiness” that we were promised. Rationality is lost, for we forget
that happiness is a want, and not a need. Because happiness is something
that cannot be reached and held on to, the word happiness is simply an
impossible idea of delight that we can never really acquire. In short, we make
it our god, even though deep down, we know it does not truly exist.
So
my philosophy about happiness is that there is none. But there is something called “joy.” The
difference between joy and happiness – or the idea of happiness – is that while
they both make us feel good, just
feeling good is not joy’s ultimate intention. Joy is not a result of an action
or situation, but it is a choice no matter the circumstances, which can only be
achieved if one has a continual reason to be joyful. The only continual,
lasting reason to be joyful is the acknowledgement of Grace given freely to
man, the redemptive actions of Jesus Christ, and the new life found only
through Him. While joy is an eternal feeling of inward elation, it does not
change or waver no matter what other emotions are experienced simultaneously.
Because it is something that is based on the unchangeable Love of Christ, it
remains even in our most mournful state, and is at the core of each ecstatic
roar and every miserable cry of despair. It is the reaction to the overwhelming
Love that we drown in, and the understanding of the Hope that we have in Jesus.
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