Happiness

Happiness has been on my mind lately. Mostly because for the first time in a really long time good things are happening to me and I don't feel like there's a catch. I don't feel like the bottom is going to drop out of my life in the next 5 minutes because I just felt like smiling. Nor do I feel like I am being teased with blessings. I do feel like this isn't my life; but it is and I am adjusting rather quickly to the new outlook. I rather like the view from this angle.

I am realizing that other people tend to not like it when someone else is happy. They have not found that inner Zen-ness that allows them to just be happy for someone else. I remember being in The Marriot Center at BYU for something, my knees crushed into my chin, and taking notes on a pad of Post-Its (I know I took notes on the Post-Its because they are stuck to the first few pages of my scriptures), while Henry B. Eyring said: "It is a gift of God to find joy in someone else's happiness." That phrase has had a powerful impact on my life and it saddens me when others cannot see past themselves and their petty jealousies to simply rejoice because another person has a reason to smile.

When members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints enter the waters of baptism one of the covenants that we make is to "mourn with those that mourn." I also believe that the converse is true. If we are willing to mourn with others, shouldn't we be willing, desirous even, to "rejoice with those that rejoice?" I have done quite a bit of mourning in my life and have had wonderful friends who have mourned with me. But, to be perfectly honest, the times that we rejoiced together because of something wonderful that had happened in our lives are more memorable.

I believe that those who truly have the ability to find joy in the happiness of another are those who have focused on things outside of themselves. They have found contentment with what Heavenly Father has given them. They seek to help others. In essence, they have lost their lives in service to others. They don't constantly ask, "What about me?" when they see that someone else has been given something that they think they deserve. In other words, they do not covet the life they think someone else stole from them. Have people in this world become so arrogant and hard-hearted that they believe they can dictate the course of their lives to God? Do some of us honestly believe that we would be much happier if God, who is omniscient, allowed us, who have finite, narrow vision, to tell Him what we really need to be happy right now, at this very second?

Joseph Smith, Jr., said that, "Happiness is the design and object of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, ed. Joseph Fielding Smith, Deseret Book Company, 1976, p. 255-256, emphasis added by author.) Maybe those who are not content with their lives and are angered by the happiness of others should do a self-check to see WHY the happiness of another person is so distasteful.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf's words in the 180th General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Priesthood session are worth a great deal in learning to be happy. He said,

"There is an important concept here: patience is not passive resignation, nor is it failing to act because of our fears. Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can—working, hoping, and exercising faith; bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed. Patience is not simply enduring; it is enduring well!

Impatience, on the other hand, is a symptom of selfishness. It is a trait of the self-absorbed. It arises from the all-too-prevalent condition called “center of the universe” syndrome, which leads people to believe that the world revolves around them and that all others are just supporting cast in the grand theater of mortality in which only they have the starring role."

Those who are so desperately unhappy with what they have been given in their own life are impatient and ungrateful to that God who has given them the very breath they breathe. They take this impatience and ingratitude and use them as weapons against those who struggle to remember why they are friends, driving them away through criticism and harsh words. For those of you still living in the dark ages, the world does not revolve around you! It revolves around the Son and what He has taught us to be. May you choose to be happy and ask God if you may have that gift of the Spirit which allows you to "find joy in someone else's happiness."